


Their Glow Unyielding

by aceofjapan



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst with a Happy Ending, Badass Katsuki Yuuri, Blood and Gore, Casual Violence, Coercion, Depressed Victor Nikiforov, Don't copy to another site, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Everyone's a Werewolf (Almost), Hurt/Comfort, Identity Reveal, M/M, Manipulation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pack Dynamics, Slow Burn, Supernatural Elements, Touch-Starved Victor Nikiforov, not a/b/o
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 22,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28047135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofjapan/pseuds/aceofjapan
Summary: For too long the families Nikiforov and Plisetsky have been at war.After devastating losses on both side, a treaty is signed: the well-loved sons of both packs are sent away to be raised by the other family. Not hostages, no: just to guarantee the peace.Victor is stuck in a pack where he doesn’t belong, stuck in his own body that betrays him.Surrounded by enemies, all he wants is an ally. A friend.Sometimes help comes from the most unexpected sources.Written for YOI Angst Week 2020 Day 7 - Trapped
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri & Yuri Plisetsky, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Phichit Chulanont & Katsuki Yuuri
Comments: 95
Kudos: 56
Collections: YOI Angst Week 2020





	1. prologue: run

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for Day 7 of YOI Angst Week: **Trapped**.
> 
> Thank you to the incomparable [Stevie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombubble) who has been there listening to me ramble about this fic every step of the way, and offered invaluable insights of her own. Couldn't do it without you! 💜
> 
> About the tags: More tags will be added as I go along, but the MAW are not going to change and there shouldn't be anything commonly triggering beyond the things that are already tagged. The fic is completely plotted out and will post ever other sunday. The high chapter count is due to the fact that between each chapter there will be a short interlude similar to the prologue here. So the actual number of chapters will be about half of this.
> 
> Check out the Angst Week Collection as well as [twitter](http://twitter.com/yoiangstweek) and [tumblr](http://yoiangstweek.tumblr.com/) to see more amazing AW works!

  


He could hear the crunch of snow under his feet, but he didn’t feel the cold.

Heat was still running down his spine and beading at his brow, making him shiver in the velvet-soft darkness. Making him want to buck and twist until he could shed the very skin off his body, drop it into the snow and leave it behind like he had the rest of his clothes long ago.

He was still running, but he couldn’t catch his own thoughts. They were fleeting, a fog-feeling behind his eyes.

His only impulse was to go, go, go. 

No sense of where. No sense how far. 

But he needed distance, as much as he could get under his feet.

It was the only thought he could hold fast to in the feverish haze of his head.

Away.

There was pain in his body, his feet, his sides, but it was dull, distant, a whisper of a sensation. 

It didn’t matter.

Somehow, it didn’t matter, even as the sharp-edged stones and broken branches bit into his feet, leaving a bloody trail in the snow that nearly glowed in the darkness.

He ran.

By the time his energy ran out, the sun was already cresting on the distant hills. 

His steps were faltering, feet stumbling, finally, and he crashed to his knees among the cheerful twittering of the morning’s birds.

Crashed onto the rough, snow down forest floor, bare knees crunching against the ice and the crisp leaves underneath.

He was tired.

His fever still raging inside his mind, but his head felt clear enough to be aware that there were two options now.

He knew he wouldn’t be getting up again before he had rested.

So there were two choices, now.

Either the cold would get him, or the wolf would.

There was not enough strength left in his body to care which it would be. There was only heaviness and heat and ache and he curled up under the scant protection of a sprawling bush and closed his eyes.

He would sleep, because it was all he could do.

He would sleep, even though he didn’t know if he’d wake up again.


	2. chapter I: strange skins

When Victor was summoned, he didn‘t come immediately.

He turned another page of his book, barely acknowledging the servant standing in the door with a glance.

This was a familiar routine: Victor would pretend to keep reading—he couldn't actually focus on reading while someone was with him in the room, waiting expectantly and radiating impatience while not saying a word. Victor would act like he was calm personified, not deigning to put down his book until he deemed it time to do so.

After a solid minute of silence—Victor was fairly sure the servant was counting seconds in their head—they would clear their throat for a firm but polite "Master?“

It was a farce. 

He was no more a master in this house than the servant was, but appearances mattered.

Oh, how appearances mattered.

He would eke out another precious ten seconds of feigned control before he would close the book with a put upon sigh, as if he‘d just so happened to reach a good stopping point.

Then he‘d look up.

"What was it that you wanted?“, he‘d ask, eyebrows raised, as if he hadn‘t paid attention the first time around. As if there was ever anything else the servants came to him for.

"Master Plisetsky summoned you for dinner“, they‘d say, and to their credit there would be no trace of annoyance in their words. Servants in the Plisetsky house either learned very quickly to keep their opinions to themselves, or they never got a chance.

Victor would rise from his chair, leaving his book on the side table. 

"Naturally“, he‘d say, as if there was nowhere else for him to be. 

And there wasn‘t. 

* * *

The Plisetsky family was already gathered around the table by the time Victor entered the dining room.

Every face turned toward him as the servant pushed open the door firmly, stepping aside to let Victor enter.

He didn‘t mind the way that six pairs of bright, gleaming eyes were fixed on him as he made his way to his usual chair, the only one at the table still empty—quite the opposite, if he didn‘t enjoy these little moments, his big entrances, as much as he did, he might have given up his feeble show of defiance a long time ago.

As it was, he reveled in the glares directed at him, even as they ranged from a distasteful scowl to hidden admiration or amusement.

He was intimately aware of the way he looked as he crossed the room, the way the candlelight reflected of the gold embroidery that curled around the shoulders of his shirt and made his pale hair gleam, the way his wide strides ruffled the shirt’s fabric, left open down to his sternum, giving a glimpse of his chest, the way his trousers hugged his ass and legs, showing off toned muscles.

It wasn't like there were any unflattering clothes in Victor‘s wardrobe, not when they were all provided by the Plisetskys, but tonight‘s outfit had been selected with particular care to highlight all the best features of his appearance, like every night they have a family dinner.

After all, Victor‘s body was the only thing he still held control over, and it would not do to let the Plisetskys forget that he intended to hold on to that particular bargaining chip.

"You’re late“, Nikolai growled as Victor took his seat, and Victor smiled a sweet, emotionless smile at him.

"My apologies“, he said.

He didn‘t offer an excuse. He never did.

He caught Dunja‘s eyes across the table, Dunja, who had been staring at the pale expanse of his chest ever since he'd come in, and winked at her.

She flushed, and looked away.

Mila, next to her, snickered.

Nikolai gave a sigh and gestured toward more servants that were lined up at the wall, who immediately broke into movement, bringing the first course of their dinner to the table.

It had always seemed like such a farce to Victor that Nikolai would insist on these formal dinners every fortnight. To strengthen the family bonds, he would say, and to keep everyone informed what was happening in the rest of the pack‘s lives.

It was nothing but an excuse, Victor knew—they all knew what was happening, the pack was not that big. And they spent plenty of time together—the family bonds are as strong as they could get, and where they weren‘t, they certainly wouldn’t improve through these stiff dinners. 

The real reason, Victor suspected, though he has never been able to confirm it, was that Nikolai wanted to keep up a front of being civilised. 

We are not rogue wolves, these dinners said, and we are not wild wolves. We are the Plisetsky Family, the most powerful pack in the kingdom. 

Never mind that by Victor‘s latest estimation, the Plisetsky family was perhaps the sixth most powerful pack in the kingdom, if one wanted to be generous about it.

Never mind that all other days in a fortnight, most of the pack behaved like they might as well be wild wolves, devouring their prey raw right on the hunt, no need for cooking, cutlery, or clothes, for that matter. 

Never mind that all other days in a fortnight, disagreements in the pack would be solved with a scuffle in the grounds and inevitably end with someone‘s teeth at someone‘s throat, instead of the stiff civility that these dinner parties brought.

Victor wished they could just dispose of this front already. He wished he didn‘t have to sit through painfully tense three hours and five courses, trying to make it through conversation with the pack without letting it escalate. He wished he didn‘t have to let himself be ogled and appraised all evening, his appearance judged and his worth estimated like a piece of fine art. He wished he could spend these nights like he spends most other nights, retreated into the library or his own bedroom with a book and, if he was very lucky, a heap of warm fur by his side.

These fortnightly dinners were the most interaction with other people he got, and despite how much his isolation gnawed at him in the small hours of the morning, eroding his sense of self, he would give them up in a heartbeat.

They had made it through the first two courses with stiff small talk on how their respective days had gone, and the third course was just brought out by the servants. Victor saw the eagerness in the eyes of the family members when the steaks, perfectly cooked to rare, were set before them. 

While werewolves could eat and process human fare just fine, though they needed a lot more of it than a regular human, there was just nothing quite as satisfying as a good piece of meat. 

And Victor was accustomed to this—he ate human fare most days, if he ate at all. Heavy on the meat, sure, but normal human meals still. The rest of the pack, however, tended to sustain themselves on freshly hunted meat only, human or animal, and Victor could see them struggling with their civilised meal.

Victor had just picked up his knife and fork when Nikolai addressed him, the first time since Victor had entered the dining room.

"You look well, Vitya.“

Victor set down his knife and fork carefully, looking up toward the head of the table.

"Thank you“, he said, keeping his voice even.

Nikolai‘s gaze on him, tracing what was visible of his body, was perfectly detached, appraising him. His comment was not a compliment, merely an assessment. The same could not be said about all the gazes Victor could feel trained on him from around the table.

"A new tunic, is it?“, Nikolai asked, and Victor tilted his head to the side.

"I wouldn‘t know“, he said easily, "these things tend to just appear in my wardrobe.“

Nikolai lifted an eyebrow at him, but then he turned toward his son to his left with a questioning gaze. Ilja nodded, face immovable. 

"I had some new things brought in from the city. The most recent fashions, or so I am told.“ 

"Any particular occasion?“

"There is a ball coming up in Petersburg. In celebration of the Duke‘s engagement. He will have to look presentable.“

"The other packs will be there?“

"Representatives of all packs are invited, yes. I was thinking of sending Mila or Dunja with him. A show of strength.“

Victor followed their conversation silently, fingers itching to pick up his cutlery again. He wasn‘t unused to be being talked about as if he wasn‘t in the room. He might as well get a few more bites of his dinner out of it.

But Nikolai turned back towards him before he had the time.

"It suits you well“, he said, "You should have your picture taken.“

Victor stared for a moment. This was new.

"Excuse me?“

"Yes“, Ilja said, seemingly already following his father‘s train of thought. "We‘ll give them to Mila or Dunja to pass to the ladies at the ball. Something to remember him by.“

"Indeed.“ Nikolai‘s eyes narrowed as he still gazed at Victor with that piercing, calculating stare. "The Crispinos, I think, and the Bins. Does the Nekola Family have female offspring of the right age? No matter, pass it to the men who are so inclined, too. If he is coveted by more, it will just make him more valuable.”

Ilja nodded eagerly, and Victor could see in the way his eyes glazed over that he was already compiling a list in his mind. Nikolai, in the meantime, caught they eyes of a servant who stood at the edges of the room. 

“Send for Patrik Petrovich”, he said, and the servant scurried ouf of the room immediately. 

Victor stared. He hadn't thought anything the Plisetskys did could still catch him off guard.

“Right now?”

Nikolai’s gaze turned to him with a frigid smile and a raised eyebrow.

“And why not? Seeing as you’ve made yourself so nice and pretty, it would be a shame to let it go to waste, would it not?”

A sigh suppressed, Victor nodded, silently, and resigned himself to not getting to eat any more of his meal tonight.

* * *

Patrik Petrovich appeared in the dining room soon, carrying his heavy camera case, sweat beading on his brow, looking harried.

Victor imagined it must be unnerving for any human to be summoned into the Plisetsky manor late in the evening, to venture into the den of wolves in the darkness and not being sure if you would see the light of day again. And Patrik Petrovich was not accustomed to his services being required by the Plistesky family, beyond the yearly family portrait, which had been taken only a few months ago.

He did a remarkable job of keeping his composure, though, bowing to Nikolai and receiving his instructions calmly. Victor was arranged on an imposing, decorative chair in a corner of the room while Patrik Petrovich set up his complicated machinery, assisted by one of the servants. The next course of dinner was served by the time the camera was set up and Patrik Petrovich had dived under the cloth. 

The family at the dinner table kept eating, all the while watching Victor being photographed like a mildly interesting variety show. Every once in a while, Nikolai would interject instructions for Victor or Patrik Petrovich. 

Victor complied, leaning forward when told to give the camera deeper insight into his half-open shirt, tugging aside the fabric just enough to give the barest hint of a nipple. He smirked as he was told, looked serious as he was told, spread or crossed his legs as he was told. He knew better than to protest. Knew better than to show any emotion other than the ones he was told to project, interspersed with a kind of bored amusement, as if all of this farce didn’t have anything to do with him.

The better he cooperated, the sooner he would be left to his own devices.

By the time Nikolai was satisfied and Patrik Petrovich sent off to develop the photographs, dinner was wrapping up. Victor was allowed to return to the table for cheese and coffee. He picked at the cheese and declined the coffee, his grumbling stomach warring with his complete lack of appetite. Ilja and Nikolai were still discussing the ball, and it was decided that Mila will be the one to accompany him. That, at least, was a relief. Mila was the only one in the family he could be said to get along with, tentative and superficial a relationship though it is, consisting mainly of sparring and gossiping together. Mila’s recklessness and constant lewd remarks can be exhausting, but still she would no doubt provide better company than Dunja’s insistent and borderline invasive admiration, and the jealousy that would no doubt accompany it at an event such as the ball.

Victor was dragged out of his thoughts by the scraping of chairs and a general air of movement. Nikolai was draining the last of his coffee and had evidently dismissed the family, who were finishing up their own beverages and making to leave. 

“Mila, Vitya”, Nikolai called on their attention, “You will meet with me tomorrow in my office to discuss the ball.” At their nods, Nikolai turned toward his son-in-law. “Kolya, fetch the ace for me.”

At these words, Victor lingered over getting up from his chair, taking his time folding up his napkin and bruhsing non-existent crumbs off his lap.

“He’s still out”, came the reply in Kolya’s gruff voice, “he’s patrolling the northern border tonight.”

Nikolai’s eyebrows drew down into a scowl. “Well, send someone to relieve him then and send him to me as soon as he’s back. I have an important task for him.”

Kolya hurried away, looking displeased, and Victor got up with a sigh, dropping his napkin carelessly on the table before striding from the room. 

So much for his hopes of spending some time in the company of the only friendly presence in his whole damn house—if friendly was indeed the right word to describe a vicious, a hundred and twenty pound wolf that could tear out his throat in a single bite. Then again, every single member of the family could also tear out Victor’s throat with a bite, and sometimes Victor felt like the ace was the only one who wasn’t keen to actually do it.

Outside of being alone—and Victor was so, so sick of being alone—being with the ace was the closest Victor could get in this house to being comfortable. Without being judged, without being appraised, without being anything that he was not. No pretending. No hiding. The ace wouldn't look down on him, that reassuring lack of judgement that only comes with lack of awareness. He was an animal, just a wolf, not a were. And didn’t it give Victor some twisted sense of satisfaction that, in a house full of werewolves who all thought so much of themselves, the strongest and—Victor sometimes felt—Nikolai’s most trusted fighter was just a wolf? It’s probably what made him like the ace even more, that his skills put all the rest of the family to shame.

And the ace—well… he tolerated Victor. Which was high praise as it was. He obeyed Nikolai’s and Kolya’s orders without fail ever since he had been brought into the family some years ago, but he was not a friendly animal. He was not tame. 

Quite the opposite—he would make his displeasure quite freely known if someone put their hands on him, or otherwise got too close for comfort. He had been responsible for a fair amount of bloody bites, torn chunks of flesh, body checks and broken bones, which wasn’t as much of a problem as it could be, in a house full of werewolves who would heal quickly. It hadn't been any different for Victor—still wasn’t any different much of the time, if Victor was being honest, but it seemed that the ace has decided, much like Victor himself, that of all the unbearable company in this house, Victor was the least unbearable. 

Tonight, however, Victor would not get the pleasure of less-than-unbearable company, of having a warm, breathing, non-hostile body curled up next to him in the library or in his own room. Tonight, Victor was on his own.

His steps led him back to the library first. He had to pick up his book that he'd left there before he had headed out for dinner, and he might pick up another few to take back to his room. While he enjoyed reading in the library, enjoyed the quiet, comfortable atmosphere of being surrounded by books, he never knew when one of the other family members might come in and destroy his quiet. Most of the Plisetsky family would, admittedly, not be found in the library voluntarily, but both Ilja and Dunja would regularly come in search of some research material, and neither of them was particularly good company.

He stepped into the large, warmly lit room lined with bookshelves on all walls, more shelves arranged into tall, narrow aisles in the middle, between which Victor got lost for a while. He traced his eyes and his fingertips along the spines of the books in the gloom, looking for something to catch his interest. Most of them he was intimately familiar with, the gilded embossing on their binding, the scuffs along the edges, the lettering declaring their title and author. They were like old, comforting friends, in a way. There weren’t a lot left that Victor hadn’t spend some quiet, comfortable hours with.

In the end, he plucked a couple of his old favourite novels off the shelves that he hasn’t read in a while, along with a book on French grammar. To that he added the old philosophic tome he'd left on the side table earlier, leaving him with a good selection to get him through the night.

He turned down the lights in the library before he softly closed the door behind him and wandered down the hall toward the staircase which would take him back to his bedroom. He stopped a servant along the way, requesting that tea be brought to his room, a request that might actually be granted tonight, when the kitchens were well staffed for the family dinner.

Though the staff all treated Victor politely, some, on occasion, even kindly, Victor knew that upon their employ in the Plisetsky household, they were instructed that they were not to take orders from Victor. After all, he was not a Plisestsky. His requests to the staff were sometimes granted, when he happened to find someone who was kindly disposed and had the time to accommodate him. But more often than not, Victor ended up having to look after his own needs.

This was not a problem for him; he didn't feel entitled to the servant's help the way the rest of the family did, by virtue of never having had that luxury, at least not since he was a boy. But it was grating as a reminder of just what Victor's position in this household was: that of a hostage.

The servant acknowledged his request with a nod and a shallow bow, and Victor, with a sigh, resigned himself to just having to wait and see whether or not tea would be brought to his chambers. He turned a corner and stopped in his track again when he was suddenly faced with the large shape of a wolf blocking his path.

"Ace, hi", Victor murmured, unable to keep the softness from creeping into his voice. 

He knew that he should not be getting attached to the wolf for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which was the fact that a wolf being used as a hunter and fighter by a werewolf family was bound to not survive very long, but he couldn't help himself. He was a were, too, hard though it may be for the Plisetskys to believe, and it was deep in a were's nature to bond with his pack. And since the Plisetsky family would not treat him as part of their pack, the ace was the closest thing he had to one.

This helpless bond he had with the wolf, somewhere between that to a pet and that to a pack member, was the only thing keeping him anchored in this miserable hellscape that he's had to call his home for the last thirty years. And he knew the ace didn't feel the same, could not, by virtue of being a wolf, but still Victor had to believe there was some kind of mutual feeling of respect and companionship between them. 

The ace was not a dog, not a pet, Victor knew this, knew it better than most, but he could not help his urge to reach out and run his fingers through the wolf's soft fur.

He did not do it. It had not gone well for him in the past.

The ace peered up at him from his glowing amber eyes, a sure fire way to recognise him even if Victor did not know the pattern of his fur and the shape of his face intimately. Most of the Plisetsky family had green eyes, some blue, as does Victor himself, so the ace's warm golden glow made it impossible to mistake him for anyone else.

Though, Victor admitted, it would be so easy to mistake him for a werewolf, seeing him like this. He was big for a wolf, his body almost as long as Victor is tall, longer if his tail was included, and his head reached almost up to Victor's chest. He was certainly bigger than any wolf Victor had encountered around here, but he knew how large the beasts could get up in Siberia.

There was blood drying in the fur around the ace's muzzle, as there usually was when he returned from one of his assignments, but he greeted Victor with an almost friendly huff, his ears perked forward, body language relaxed. Victor shifted the books in his arms so he had one hand free, just in case, and gave a small smile. "I heard you got called back for another assignment tonight", he said, and the ace gave another huff and shook his head slightly, in a way that in a were would indicate annoyance. Victor sometimes wondered if he had picked these habits up from the other weres in the pack.

"Well, good luck", he continued, though it's not like it would make a difference to the wolf, nor did he need it. Victor knew he wasn't the ace for nothing, Nikolai's prime candidate for any assignment that involved hunting or fighting, but he'd been with the family for four years now, and Victor had never seen him return with any significant injuries. Well—apart from the scars on the left side of his face that quickly disappeared under his fur, but he'd had those even before he joined the family.

"I don't know when you'll be back, but you know my door's open if you need a place to crash", Victor said, stepping aside to let the ace pass. "Take care, Ace."

The ace gave a short growl of acknowledgement, then padded past him, disappearing down the hall. Victor looked after him with a regretful sigh.

The Ace was not the wolf's name—he didn't have a name, being a wolf. _The ace_ was nothing but his title, a convenient way for the family to refer to him and to designate him as the family's prime fighter. But it had always tasted bitter to Victor how impersonal it was, so he'd taken to just calling him Ace. It just felt a little more familiar on his tongue, soothing the part of him that was yearning for his pack, and since the wolf had yet to protest it, Victor didn't see any harm in it.

Shifting the books in his arms again, Victor continued on his way, climbing up the stairs to his bedroom. He put down the books on the side table and undressed for bed, surprised when there's a knock at the door in the middle of it, a servant actually bringing in a tray of tea for him. He thanked them with a polite smile as they set it down next to his books, ignoring the way their gaze kept trailing back toward his bare torso.

Once they were gone, Victor slipped into bed, books and tea on his bedside table, and tried to make himself comfortable. The house was very quiet around, him, save for the occasional soft steps of a servant in the halls. It was a bright, moonlit night, and Victor knew that most of the pack would be outside, hunting or just roaming around. He could imagine them out there in the woods, large, powerful paws biting into the leaf-covered ground, breath coming heavily, sharp teeth glinting as they hunted down their quarry. He could almost smell the musky scent of a damp forest, rotting leaves and rich, heavy earth. The sharp tang of fresh blood spiking through.

It made something tingle in his spine, made his limbs twitch with the need to stretch, to run, to push himself to his limits. Made something like a growl rise deep in his throat, though it was just a pale imitation of what he could hear out of Ace's mouth earlier. Of what any of the other weres in the family could produce. 

He stayed put, tucked into his blankets, in the safety of a warm, well-lit bedroom.

He did not go out and run with them. He could not, even if he wanted to. Out there in the woods was not his place, and they would never let him forget. He did not belong.

* * *

Victor was awoken, he didn‘t know how much later, the same darkness still spreading its tendrils into the room, by the quiet creaking of the door and soft footfalls entering the room. 

Rolling over on the bed, Victor barely opened one eye just to confirm what he already suspected, then let it slide shut again, enjoying the darkness.

"Hello, Ace“, he murmured, voice heavy with sleep, and there was an answering huff from beside the bed.

"All done with your work?“, Victor asked, though of course there was no other reply than a quick grunt. 

Forcing his heavy eyelids open once more, Victor peered at the wolf, his dark shape fuzzy against the black of night, but his eyes a sharp, piercing amber.

"You look exhausted“, he said, and it was true; the wolf was panting slightly, his posture hunched, head drooping. "Come join me. Get some sleep.“

He patted the mattress next to him, just in case Ace didn‘t understand, then laid back once again, eyes sliding shut, a smile creeping onto his face when he felt the mattress dip slightly under the wolf‘s weight a few moments later.

Though Victor had taken to leaving some room beside him on the bed after the first few times this had happened, he could feel Ace‘s weight settle at the end of the bed as always, just beyond Victor‘s feet.

Victor shook his head slightly in the darkness of his closed eyes, but didn‘t otherwise move. While he would have liked to have a warm, breathing body next to him even if it was just an animal‘s, he knows from experience that coaxing did not yield good results in his case. 

Drifting in the haze of half-sleep, Victor heard Ace huffing a few times more, the sound of his tongue as he likely licked some wounds he had contracted during whatever task he had been sent on by Nikolai, felt him get up, move around slightly on the mattress and settle down. Again.

Forcing his sluggish lips open the second time this happened, Victor spoke two words into the quiet. "Sleep, Ace.“

There was another huff, a somewhat impetuous sound, but the noises of Ace moving around subsided, and soon his breath evened and deepened as he sunk into sleep.

Smiling silently to himself, Victor, too, settled back into the quiet and let his mind ease into sleep.


	3. interlude I: rise

The cold was forgotten, a distant memory, only a shadow now in his mind and long since faded from his body.

He was no thought, no pause, no hesitation; he was only action and reaction.

Paws digging into the frozen ground as he ran, claws gaining traction, pushing him forward, faster. Muscles moving under skin, all energy. He gave himself over.

He could smell the rich darkness of the soil, the sweetness of the autumn leaves, even over the bright blue smell of frost. He could smell the sunlight filtering through a clear sky, the mist still clinging to the dips and cracks of the forest floor.

But most of all the could smell that sharp tang of life, of tiny bones and rapid-beating hearts simmering just underground, hidden in their burrows.

He could smell their fear.

All pain was forgotten, all fever meaningless when there was only this, the only thing that mattered, the only thing that hummed under his skin: the hunt.

His own breath sharp in his ears he sprang forward, like a coil, like a thing tightened and ready to burst, and then his claws found soft fur and his teeth found hot blood and he gorged himself and it was not enough.

He moved on and it was not enough, not enough, not enough.

He left a trail of small bones in his wake, bigger bones as he grew bolder, blood soaking the forest floor to make pools of dusty dark.

It was never enough, until it was, suddenly, and he felt warm and satisfied.

The star-dark was beginning to lighten but still the moon was bright in the sky.

In the distance, something howled and so he, too, howled, without thought, like it was nothing. 

A response, and then another, they were moving closer, circling in. 

There was still all that tightness in his body, all that energy coiled in and piled up, spilling over.

He didn’t think; he was no thought, only action and reaction.

He snarled, lunging forward, hackles raised, teeth burrowing into the first limb he found, tearing, searing.

A pain in his flank that he swatted away, a toss of his head and something gives, a painful howl that was not his own.

His blood was boiling and he moved, all instinct, all that red-hot ruthlessness.

When he next looked around there was blood in the snow, more dripping off his teeth, and the sound of paws retreating in the distance.

A growling sound, deep and primal, shaking the very leaves on the trees.

It was coming from his own mouth.

The sun was rising red.


	4. chapter II: the same pale masks

As tedious and, frankly, humiliating as this whole affair was, at least it was something that Victor was familiar enough with to feel somewhat comfortable. He knew how to navigate these events and the crowds, he knew how to keep up easy conversation with everyone, knew how to be just charming enough that everyone felt appreciated and flattered, but not so charming as to give anyone the wrong idea. 

He was also an excellent negotiator; over the years and the countless societal events he had attended, not to mention the countless books he had devoured on the topic, he’d learnt how to drive a hard bargain, to stick firmly to his position and get exactly what he wanted while having everyone else leaving the discussion with the feeling that they, too, got exactly what they wanted.

It was not a coincidence, after all, that Nikolai kept sending him to these functions to represent the Plisetsky family, despite Victor’s precarious position within the pack. And it was not just because the rest of the pack was either too brash or too inexperienced to be trusted to do it right. Victor was good, he knew he was good, and he knew how much his hard work had improved the Plisetskys’ standing in the last couple of decades (and some thanks he got for it). 

Sometimes Victor thought of all that extra power he’d given Nikolai, and wished he’d taken another path. If only he’d had another choice. Sure, maybe he could have tried a little less hard, could have excelled at his tasks a little less. But it was a point of pride for Victor to do the best work he was able to do, to prove that, Plisetsky or not, he was more skilled in this than any of them. Besides, it would have been a fine line to walk between defiance and open hostility if Victor had refused to do the work given to him properly. And he was meant to keep the peace, after all—that was his whole reason for being here.

So he went around the Duke’s ball, looking immaculate, he knew, in dark grey brocade tails, the embroidery on the jacket and trousers shining in the same silver as his hair, the deep red of his shirt bringing out the paleness of his skin. He talked to everyone, was his charming, flirty self, expressing interest at even the most dull of stories, displaying amusement at the most inane of jokes.

Right by his side throughout the evening was Mila, a small blessing, as it could have easily been a lot more tense and considerably more uncomfortable had Dunja been sent along with him. Mila was—well, she was a bit of a wild card, admittedly. It was impossible to tell when she would make a crass remark in the wrong moment, or when she would rudely walk away from a conversation that bored her, but she was beautiful, which would make up for many a faux pas, and her flightiness, in someone so young and beautiful, was just amusing enough to be seen as charming by most.

Right now Victor was moving towards her as she’d wandered off once more during his most recent conversation with the eldest son of the de la Iglesia clan. Claiming to go in search of a drink, she’d walked away in the middle of de la Iglesia’s remark on the music at the event, leaving Leo and Victor to look after her bewildered and exasperated respectively. Now she was standing on a balcony overlooking the ballroom, leaning over the balustrade, indeed with a drink in her hand.

“You left again”, Victor said as he reached her, matter of fact. It wasn’t like she didn’t know what she was doing. Mila shrugged easily, taking a swig from her drink and not bothering to look at Victor.

“It was boring”, she said, “He was boring. This whole stupid affair is boring.”

Victor sighed deeply. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But this is where we are, and I cannot have you keep walking away and offend the people I’m supposed to be negotiating with.”

“Is that so? What are you going to do about it?” Mila shot him a quick look from the corner of her eye, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know”, Victor replied, “but I’m not looking forward to explaining to Nikolai why I haven’t made any progress tonight.”

A less than elegant derisive snort fell from Mila’s lips. “Right. And you think he will care about the why?”

Victor bit his lips against a growl. He knew Mila was right—if Victor didn’t make the expected progress here, Nikolai wouldn’t care about the how and why. It would be Victor’s fault, no questions asked.

Tightening his hands around the balustrade, Victor tried to keep his voice level as he spoke again.

“Would dancing perhaps alleviate your boredom somewhat?”

Mila looked him up and down, lips pursed. “With you?”, she asked, “What do you think?”

Ignoring the implication, Victor turned his gaze out toward the ballroom. 

“Well then, why don’t you go and dance with Sara Crispino? You like her well enough, don’t you?”

Victor smirked as Mila’s eyes snapped right away to the same figure that Victor had been looking at, knowing full well that she liked Sara rather more than just _well enough_. Sara Crispino, standing at the other edge of the dance floor in conversation with her brother and some other man that Victor did not recognise, cut a lovely figure in a dark blue, floor-length, off the shoulder gown, glittering in the light of the chandelier like the night sky. He dark hair was pinned up in an elaborate style, only a few loose curls resting gently on her smooth shoulders.

Victor could feel the inner conflict rolling off of Mila.

“I’m supposed to stay close to you”, she finally said, reluctantly. 

“Oh, is that what you’ve been doing all evening? My mistake, I didn’t notice.”

Mila shot him a glare. “Are you just trying to get me into trouble with batya?”

Victor shrugged, letting his eyes trail over the ballroom. “I won’t tell if you don’t. Besides, didn’t you just so cleverly point out that even if I told on you, he wouldn’t believe me or care anyway?”

Mila made a vague sound at the back of her throat. 

“Well, what do you have to lose?”, Victor added.

It took a full thirty seconds before Mila straightened up and drained the last of her drink. 

“Don’t say a word”, she hissed, pressing the glass into his hand and pushing past him, making her was down the stairs and towards Sara Crispino.

Victor allowed himself a small smile. That was at least one less annoyance to deal with.

After taking a few blessed minutes for himself in the relative privacy of the balcony, he composed himself enough to return to the main event and resume his obligations. Descending the stairs, he set down Mila’s discarded glass on a passing servant’s tray, and turned to walk along the edge of the dance floor. 

And there they were—another reason why Victor both hated and loved these events. 

He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and stepped forward.

“Yuri, Tanya. What a pleasure to see you.”

Yuri Plisetsky and Tanya Nikiforova turned in unison upon hearing his voice. The way the expressions on their faces changed when they saw him, however, were rather varied.

Yuri had already been wearing a scowl, the expression that seemed to have become his default the last few times that Victor had seen him, ever since the young were had moved firmly into adolescence. That scowl now darkened quite considerably upon seeing Victor, an almost impressive feat. Aunt Tanya’s expression however had been placid, neutral, and now softened into one of warmth and fondness, making something rupture in Victor’s chest that he desperately tried to hold back.

“Vitya!”, she called back to him, “I should have expected to see you here. How lovely!” 

Stepping forward to meet him, she laid a hand on his arm, squeezing gently, and leaned in to press a kiss to each of his cheeks. 

“How have you been?”

A smile stretched Victor’s lips, feeling thin and brittle on his face, but looking, he hoped, convincing. “I’m well, thank you. How about you? And Yuri?”

He addressed the last words to the boy himself, whose face distorted into a grimace. “None of your business, old man.”

“So as always then, I see”, Victor said, chuckling, and Tanya nodded, reaching out to ruffle Yuri’s hair. To Victor’s surprise, the boy barely recoiled from her touch.

“Much as always, yes”, she said. “The Plisetskys are treating you well, I trust?”

Victor smiled again, if only to give himself time to steel himself for the lie. “As always.”

“Good, that’s good. Your mother will be happy to hear it.”

Victor almost wished he had held on to Mila’s empty glass—it would give him something to do with his hands now, something beyond helplessly twisting his fingers together. 

“How is she?”, he asked, wishing his voice did not sound so hoarse, “How is everyone?”

Tanya gave him a small, sad smile. “She’s well. Healthy. Everyone is, really. We miss having you around. Hoping to have you back with us soon now.”

Victor smiled against the ache in his chest. He long since knew better than to put any hope into those words. He’d been hearing them for at least ten years now. It wasn’t that they weren’t sincere, he knew. He knew there was truth in every word. He also knew that it was out of their hands. 

Yuri thankfully saved him from having to reply by letting out a growl. “Wow, that eager to be rid of me, huh? You could at least have this conversation not right in front of me, hag.”

Aunt Tanya only laughed, giving Yuri a friendly push at the shoulder. “You know that’s not what I meant, Yura. You know we’ll be sorry to see you go.”

“Whatever”, Yuri grumbled, crossing his arms before his chest, “It’s not like I care.”

Shaking her head fondly, Tanya looked back up at Victor. “I swear you become more handsome every time I see you, Vitya. Your mother will be glad to have news of you. What’s been going on with you? I know there’s likely not a lot you can tell us, but…”

Victor nodded his understanding. It was true that Victor couldn’t give too much away of his life with the Plisetskys, lest he spill anything confidential that could be used against them. That, too, was part of the treaty. Not that Victor would have wanted to, anyway; much of his day to day life way too miserable to worry his family with. 

“Oh, you know”, he said after a moment’s thought, “still reading a lot when I have some free time. My French has been improving, I’m sure Mama will be happy to hear. At the house there’s also—”, Victor broke off, catching himself just in time, and cleared his throat. “Ah, I’ve been keeping up with my training, too. Knives and rapier. Some running, such as I can, just to stay fit.”

“That’s nice.” Aunt Tanya gave him a smile that was just a tad indulgent, like she was listening to a school boy talking about how well he’d been doing in his lessons, and if he was being honest, that’s how Victor felt, too. Sometimes he forgot that the Plisetskys weren’t the only ones who thought of his kind of training, his kind of fighting, as a cute little pastime. After all, why would anyone even bother to fight not in wolf form? That kind of thing was for humans. 

Never mind that it was Victor’s only option.

Granted, a were would have a much harder time killing him than any regular old human, training or no training, but still Victor didn’t like the thought of being so defenceless. So he had learnt to make do with claws and teeth of steel instead. 

“So, are you still making the rounds?”, Victor asked in an attempt to take the focus off of himself.

“Yeah”, Tanya said, casting a glance around the room. “Plenty of people still to talk to.”

“Same here. But hey”, Victor said, turning toward Yuri again, “your aunt Mila is around here too, somewhere. I’m sure you can find her and she’ll tell you a bit about how your family’s doing.”

Yuri scoffed. “Yeah, right. Like I want to talk to that hag”, he said, but Victor didn’t miss how his eyes seemed to wander around the room with a little more interest now.

“Well, all right then”, Victor said with a last smile at Tanya. “I’ll leave you to it, I guess. It was lovely to see you. Please give my best to everyone.”

“Of course, Vitya. It was good to see you too.” Reaching out, Tanya took Victor’s hand and gave it a firm squeeze, which Victor returned, relishing the warmth and touch of another person against his skin. “I hope to see you again very soon.”

Victor could just smile and nod as Yuri and Tanya turned and walked away, leaving Victor alone once more.

He looked after them until they disappeared into the crowd. As much as he craved these short, civil meetings with various members of his family at these events, as much as he sometimes thought he would go mad if he didn’t have at least them to look forward to, they always left him feeling hollowed out, carved clean of any warmth, shivering. 

They made him feel like he was all alone in the world, a single being of a whole different species, deserted. Not Plisetsky and not Nikiforov, either. 

For a while, at least, he had known that Yuri was the same as him. Caught between two families and belonging to neither. And, Victor used to imagine, it must have been so much harder on Yuri, being torn away from his familiar surroundings at such a young age.

But now… now it seemed like even Yuri had found his place in this world, in _his_ family, and Victor was left completely alone. Yuri was becoming both a Nikiforov and a Plisetsky, and Victor… Victor was neither.

He tried to remind himself that this was not in vain, that he was doing this for a reason. His actions could make the difference between peace and war, and he’d be damned if he carelessly pulled other people into this.

He would keep up the treaty for as long as it took. He would not let his own selfish desires and emotions get in the way of that.

Forcing himself to resurface from the depth of his thoughts and focus once more, he let his eyes sweep over the dance floor. There were a few familiar faces he could spot, Nekola and de la Iglesia both dancing, each with a partner that Victor didn’t recognise, the head of the Leroy family observing goings on from a corner, surrounded by sycophants. 

He spotted Mila’s bright red head of hair, too, and Sara Crispino’s deep blue gown next to her and… they were standing at the edge of the dance floor, surrounded by a small cluster of other women their age, and Victor was about to chuckle at the way Mila knew to draw girls’ attention, but the sound stuck in his throat when he saw.

Those damn pictures.

He had almost forgotten about them. 

And there Mila was, handing them out like party favours, from the looks of it.

Victor turned away quickly, before any of them saw him looking. He’d prefer it if they giggled about him behind his back rather than to his face. Besides, it wouldn’t do to give any of the poor girls ideas by being caught staring.

Striding along the edge of the room, Victor made his way toward one of the servants carrying drinks, and swept a glass off their tray in passing, gulping half of it down in one swig.

He didn’t make it very far.

“Victor!”

Reluctantly, Victor halted in his steps and turned to acknowledge the speaker.

“Irina.”

She waved him closer, excited, from where she was standing with her parents, dressed in a low-cut red gown, her blonde hair slung over one shoulder in a carefully styled glossy cascade. 

Stepping closer, Victor suppressed a sigh as Irina greeted him with a wide smile and a hand on his arm. Victor’s attempt at stopping an arm’s length away from here was futile when she closed the remaining distance between them and leaned closer to press a kiss to each of his cheeks.

“How lovely to see you here!”, she chirped, “I admit I was hoping that you’d come. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, and since you still won’t write to me…” She gave his shoulder a playful little push.

Victor tried not to let his smile look too much like a grimace. “My apologies”, he said, “I’m afraid that my duties don’t really give me a lot of liberty for personal correspondence.”

Irina gave a little huff. “You say that every time.”

“Perhaps because it is true every time”, Victor replied with a mild smile. It was, in fact, not true at all, but it had become a familiar excuse, easy on his tongue.

He turned towards Irina’s parents with a slight incline of his head. “Lord Fedorov. Lady Fedorova. Always a pleasure.”

They returned his smile and greeting politely, though their eyes lacked the warmth of their daughter’s as they regarded him. This, too, was familiar. Victor was already bracing himself for half an hour of painfully awkward small talk, when Irina’s hand returned to his arm, squeezing gently.

“Shall we dance?”

For a moment he thought about declining, weighing in his mind the relative benefits of not having to converse with the Fedorovs against the prospect of spending some time alone in close proximity to Irina. But in the end, he had no grounds on which to reject her; it would be too rude to decline. So he nodded his assent and led her to the dance floor where she stepped close, a little too close for proper dancing, and easily draped her arms over his shoulders. 

Victor’s attempts at keeping some semblance of a distance between their bodies were futile, as she leaned in close, her head almost resting on his shoulder as they turned slowly with the music.

“I really was very disappointed to not hear from you, you know?”, she murmured into the hollow of his throat, “How many times must I ask you to write to me before you do?”

"Ah, well", Victor said, giving a bit of a pained smile, "I'm not much of a correspondent, I'm afraid. I just don't have—"

"—the time, yes, you said", she completed his sentence. "I cannot quite believe that to be true. I am not asking for a daily dissertation. Just a letter every once in a while. Tell me about how your week has been. Ask about mine. Surely that's not too much to ask?" Lifting her head she looked up at him from below her long, pale lashes, entreating. "I just want to learn more about you. How else are we going to get to know each other if we only ever see each other at these events every few months?"

Victor licked his lips, swallowing, He didn't know how to explain that he had no desire to get to know Irina, no desire to be a part of her life. It wasn't even that he minded her personally, she was friendly, a good dancer, sharp and witty when she wanted to be. But he knew exactly where her getting to know each other was aiming, and he had no interest in going there.

At the same time, however, she was a Fedorova, and it would not do for Victor to reject her outright, even if it wasn't for Nikolai looking over his shoulder. He heaved a great sigh.

"I am flattered, as always, by your interest in my person, Irina", he said, taking on a flat tone of humility that didn't feel entirely feigned, "but are you quite certain you want to throw in your lot with, well... someone like me?"

Irina raised an eyebrow. "And why should I not? You are a Nikiforov, are you not? A good, reputable family. A family of fierce fighters and keen strategists. More than enough of a match for a Fedorova. 

Victor cleared his throat as he continued to turn them slowly on the dance floor, avoiding Irina's sharp gaze. 

"All family relations aside", he murmured, "I was more referring to myself as an individual."

Irina huffed. "And what of it? I see nothing in you that doesn't make me want to know you better. You're intelligent and shrewd. You're charming, when you want to be. I'm sure you have a sense of humour hidden somewhere underneath all that veneer, I can see a glimpse of it sometimes. And I'm not going to shy away from mentioning that you must be the most gorgeous man I've ever laid my eyes on. Should I keep going?"

Victor couldn't quite help the grimace that twitched over his face. "You know quite well what I'm referring to, Irina. Are you really going to make me say it?"

Much as Victor had never heard it discussed outside of his own family, he knew his condition was an open secret throughout the kingdom. He knew it from the way people looked at him, talked to him, talked _about_ him. There was a reason, after all, that the Nikiforov's eldest son was not with his family. And there was only so many times you could be absent from hunts and battles before people started to draw conclusions. But that still didn't mean he wanted to discuss it here, openly, in the middle of a dance floor full of people. This was not anyone's business but his own. Well, and a possible future mate's. 

In his arms, Irina sighed. 

"I do know what you are talking about, Victor", she said, "but frankly, I don't care. I have more than enough faith in the Fedorov bloodline. Any possible offspring, if you do want to think that far ahead, may gladly take their looks from you, and the Fedorov blood will take care of the rest. But that is quite far into the future—for now, I just want to get to know you."

Victor raised an eyebrow at her words. 

"And I'm sure your parents agree with your point of view...", he deadpanned.

Irina's smile was a bit strained. "My parents think you're perfectly charming, and they value your family very—..."

Victor gave her a flat look. 

"Alright, fine, point taken", she said, squaring her shoulders, "But my parents _will_ come around to my point of view." Hearing her tone of voice, Victor did not doubt it. "My father knows well that once I've got my eyes set on something, I do not let it go easily. So let my parents be my concern. Now would you please stop trying to make excuses and just write to me already?"

"Of course he will!", a chipper voice said over Victor's shoulder before he could even open his mouth. 

Victor whirled around, releasing his hold on Irina, to see Mila standing behind him, a wide, toothy grin on her face. "Victor would never reject such a lovely lady's impassioned plea for a letter", she said, clapping a hand firmly on his shoulder, "would you now, Vitya?"

Victor had to work hard to pry apart his gritted teeth. 

"Of course not", he said, "I would be delighted."

"Lovely", Irina said, her smile bright, "let me give you my calling card. I'm sure I've given it to you before, but just to make sure that it doesn't get lost..."

She pulled a card out of some hidden pocket in her dress, and Mila swiped it out of her hand as soon as she held it out. 

"Don't worry", she said, still grinning, "I'll make sure he follows through. He can be so forgetful, this one."

The smile felt burning on Victor's face as he turned to her. "Why, thank you, Ludmila. How thoughtful." He took a small measure of satisfaction from the way she winced at the name. "Was there anything else that you wanted?"

Mila tilted her head, eyes sharp. "Just letting you know it's about time for us to head back. The carriage takes a long while back to the estate."

With a nod, Victor turned back toward Irina. 

"Then I have to take my leave, I'm afraid", he said, "always a pleasure to dance with you. Give my best to your parents and... well, I suppose I'll write to you soon."

"Make sure that you do", Irina said, leaning in to once again to press kisses to both his cheeks, "I'm looking forward to it. Safe travels."

With a last nod Victor turned away and led Mila off the dance floor, hand clamped firmly around her arm.

"I suppose you're very satisfied with yourself", he hissed at her under his breath. 

"Can't complain", she replied brightly, "Fedorova, huh? Ilja is going to be thrilled."

Victor suppressed a groan as he steered Mila toward the doors. Of course she would pass on this bit of information immediately.

"Don't be daft, Ludmila. Ilja is incapable of being thrilled by anything."

A growl rose in Mila's throat.

"You call me that again and I'll tear out your throat. Don't you think that I won't just because you can't fight back."

Victor chuckled as they stepped out into the fresh air of dawn, a blessing after hours stuck in the poorly ventilated ballroom, and made their way toward the stables. "It's cute that you think I can't fight you."


	5. interlude II: rush

The woods were dark and deep, a refuge.

Infinity in all directions.

The air was crisp and filled with more smells than he had ever known.

Sharp fir green growth, spiked tan sweat, mellow grey rain and electric red blood.

Blood and blood and blood.

This could be a place to stay.

Crunching underfoot and a dip in the snow-dappled forest floor, an overhang of leaves.

He lay, curled into himself, tucked in, a child in the cradle of a mother’s arms.

Licked his wounds, all the places where he was torn open, spilling out into the night like the first light of the morning.

And he closed his eyes.

The silvery air of dusk awaited him when he woke, that hour of decay, of the day-things’ departure, a relief.

Hale and whole, he stretched, hunger trickling into the edges of his limbs, grabbing him bodily to drag him out of his cave.

He sniffed the air, that irresistible tang of it, and let his body carry him out to the hunt.

Again and again and again.

He chased that hum of life through the underbrush, claws tearing at fur, teeth digging into flesh.

He stilled that beast that craved and returned to his cove every time, his sanctuary.

He chased away those wrong howls, the ones that grated on him, made him bristle.

His leaps a thunder on the forest floor, his growl a rush of rain.

He chased and after a while, they stopped returning.

His body was fluid, it was strong, a creature built for excellence and it felt right. Soon he forgot what it had been like to walk on two feet. Soon he forgot how he had ever managed without a tail for balance.

Soon he forgot what it was like to see the sparkling spectrum of light, how it was to perceive his world with the eyes instead of the nose.

Soon he forgot all the fear that used to weigh him down, all that worry, meaningless.

The emotions of a life tamed and bound to an ordinary body.

A life contained to such a narrow frame of right and wrong.

In the woods there was no right, no wrong.

There was only life, survival.

Soon he forgot.


	6. chapter III: the taste of memories and iron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fair warning: I changed the rating bc I now know there will def be smut in this fic's future, but it'll still be a while before it happens. just so no one gets disappointed 😂

Victor was awoken from a light afternoon doze by the sound of growling and snapping outside his window. 

This was in itself far from an uncommon occurrence, not any cause for alarm.

The extensive grounds of the Plisetsky estate were populated by at least a few weres most hours of the day, fighting or roughhousing or just lazing about, so the noises were inevitable.

But now that Victor was awake, he pulled himself out of bed. He felt like he had been lying around too much since that last ball—since there were no new events or tasks in his immediate future that required preparation, he was left alone in the solitude of his room even more than usual. 

His mind yearned for any kind of stimulus, any news, anything to absorb and process. He approached the window, leaning close to the glass to look down onto the grounds below and the shapes that were running around on the grass.

He could spot a few members of the family, as well as other weres from the pack that he had trouble identifying clearly from a distance. The ongoing growling and snapping came, to little surprise, from Mila roughhousing with another were with dark grey fur, tumbling about on the grass as their powerful jaws and sharp teeth snapped at each other. 

It looked to be a playful fight, from what Victor could see—whenever one of them found their mark, they would draw blood, but there was no vicious tearing and pulling, no intent to seriously harm. 

Victor had witnessed plenty of other fights that didn’t adhere to those rules—fights to settle some disagreement or avenge some insult, perceived or real, fights to establish dominance or just for the pride of it. With these, there were usually few holds barred, resulting often in gaping wounds, torn ears, even scratched eyes. 

This was not one of those fights, was barely more than play by comparison, really. Just a release of pent-up energy, an outlet for any stray frustrations. It wouldn't leave any wounds that the werewolf blood couldn't heal within a couple of days.

Having only watched a short while, Victor could already tell that Mila clearly had the upper hand in the fight, getting in a lot more swipes and bites than her opponent, which was not a surprise. Mila fast and uninhibited and a little reckless, but that also made her unpredictable.

You would have to pay very close attention to her fighting habits if you were trying to figure her out, her little tells and tricks. Victor was nothing if not observant, and watching Mila grow up in this house he had seen her develop her fighting style from her first playfights as barely more than a pup. Victor knew well how to read her, how to anticipate her moves—at least from the outside.

He had never fought her himself, of course. He knew it would be a very different experience if it ever came to that, different from observing as a detached and calculating outsider. Still, he had committed what he had learned about her to memory. Just in case it ever came to that. Hopefully, it wouldn't—he certainly wouldn't look forward to fighting someone like Mila, no matter what he'd told her as they had left the ball. But someone in his position would do better to be prepared.

And he had a lot of time on his hands, after all—a lot of time in which he was left only to his own thoughts. At least like this, he could feel like he was doing something with himself, something useful, preparing for some nebulous worst-case scenario that he didn't allow himself to think about in too much detail. 

Mila wasn't the only one who he observed like this, of course. There was a careful list of data on most of the members of the family stashed in Victor's mind, plus some of the other wolves from the pack, if they had been around for a while.

He didn't know the grey were that Mila was fighting now, couldn't remember having seen him around too much. Perhaps he was new in the pack, or didn't usually spend a lot of time at the house. If he was, then it would make sense why he had let himself be dragged into a fight with Mila in the first place. She was still young, relatively small and sleek. A lot of the bigger weres, especially the male ones, tended to underestimate her. Most of them had learned their lesson by now, and many of the less skilled fighters tended to stay away from her.

Shifting his weight and leaning his elbows onto the window sill, Victor peered down as he saw a shift of attention going through the group. While most of the idle weres had kept at least one eye on the fight, some with no more than a passing interest, some being actively riveted, now it seemed something was dragging their attention away. Leaning to the side to follow their eyes or, more likely, noses, Victor saw the shape of another wolf appear over the crest of the hill.

They trotted closer, approaching the house, but seemed to not pay the weres milling about any mind. The fact that some of them retreated out of the way gave Victor a good idea of who it was, even before he was close enough to recognise. His suspicion was confirmed soon after, when he spotted the distinctive markings in Ace's dark fur.

The wolf didn't seem to notice or react to the weres' deference in any way, but Victor smiled to himself as he watched it. He knew many of the weres from the extended pack had a healthy respect for the Ace, and with good reason. He had rarely seen Ace engage in any playful fights or roughhousing, but he defended himself sharply when someone was disrespectful or invaded his personal space. And Victor had witnessed a few of his all-out fights before, and it had been... carnage. Victor shuddered at the memory. Here was a wolf he would definitely prefer not to face in a fight when it came down to it.

The Ace didn't fight like a normal were would. He was wild and fierce too, but not in the same way as Mila. In spite of all her attempts at being unpredictable, there was something calculated about her fighting style. It was something carefully curated to give the impression of being unpredictable. Ace, however... there was no thought to the way he fought, only action. He was impulsive and he had uncanny instincts and incredible endurance. Serious fights were always short by necessity. The body could only provide the strength, adrenaline and focus needed for a fight like that for a short amount of time, before fatigue settled in and slowed the reflexes.

But Ace could outlast any fight by stamina and stubbornness alone, biding his time until his opponent was flagging, and then striking hard and fast. It wasn't a surprise, then, that so many of the lower ranked weres deferred to him. No one wanted to get on his bad side. 

But, as usual, the Plisetsky family proper was a different question altogether. Evidently, Mila had noticed by now that interest in her fight had flagged, shaking off her opponent like an annoying fly and perking up to see what could have possibly drawn the attention away from her.

She leapt up when she spotted Ace, bounding over to him and, never one to be outdone, launched herself at him, nipping playfully at the back of his neck. Both of them tumbled over but quickly found their footing again, Mila hunching close to the ground, tail wagging and teeth bared in a playful challenge. The snarl on Ace's face however was a lot less light-hearted, hair and hackles raised with a deep growl that reverberated clearly even to up to the window where Victor was watching. He chuckled to himself when he saw some of the weres surrounding Mila and Ace cowering and backing away at the sound.

Mila did not appear to be intimidated, though. If anything, she twitched in anticipation of a good fight, tail still wagging. Victor thought she was taking quite a risk—unlike the weres that Mila usually fought, the wolf would not have the presence of mind to pull back if the fight escalated—she might get seriously hurt. They both might.

There was a long moment of tension in which even Victor held his breath, arrested by the display of aggression below him. Then it was over—Ace‘s growl fading as he huffed in clear dismissal and trotted on toward the house. Mila straightened up, disappointment and annoyance in the droop of her ears as she looked after him.

She caught herself quickly, though, perking up and bounding after him until she‘d caught up, trotting close by his side, brushing shoulders and nuzzling into his fur. Victor‘s eyebrows raised as he watched her—he couldn‘t pick it up through the closed window, but he was sure she must be whining. Ace was clearly unimpressed by her advances, turning his head to snap at her in warning and pulling away from her touches.

It wasn’t a surprise per sé—flings and dalliances formed as quickly between weres as they fell apart again. A lot of fun was had, Victor knew, in human shape and in wolf shape both. It wasn’t that the concept of a lasting mateship that their animal cousins adhered to was foreign to them, but true to the human part of their nature weres tended to sow their wild oats quite liberally before settling down with a mate. But Victor had never seen anyone openly approach Ace like that. Though Ace’s rebuff had been clear, Victor still couldn’t help but wonder if he was as entangled in the ever-shifting dalliances as the rest of them. It wasn’t like were and wolf weren’t compatible like that, and many weres, especially the more feral ones, had no qualms about throwing in their lot with wolves in the wild, especially since it couldn’t result in any offspring. Still, from Victor’s perspective—his incomplete perspective, as everyone was fond of reminding him—it had an uncomfortable aftertaste.

Mila continued loping after Ace for a while longer, though Ace pointedly ignored her, and soon disappeared out of sight, rounding the corner toward the entrance of the house. Mila slunk back to the other weres who were relaxing again now that the Ace was out of sight, looking for a different playmate. Victor was sure she wouldn’t have any difficulty in finding someone to indulge her. But he didn’t need to stick around to see it.

With a sigh he turned away from the window, wandering aimlessly through his room.

There was a dull ache in his chest, images tumbling in front of his mind’s eye of the pack’s easy interaction, the way they tumbled over one another, nuzzled and groomed, the way played, fought and mated like it was the most natural thing. And it was, to them—body language the mother tongue to a wolf, physical touch—be it rough or tender—their main communication style.

And this translated to the human form as well; with the exception of Nikolai as the untouchable head of the pack, the rest of the family was just was physically expressive on two legs as they were on four. Hugging and snuggling, shoving and punching: it was how they expressed all of their emotion, moving beyond a need for words.

But for Victor… it was different. No one ever touched Victor.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been propositioned before, and not just by Dunja—though he suspected that Dunja was more after a mateship than a casual fling. Other members of the family and the pack, too, had approached him, with suggestive looks and too-blunt words. Victor knew he was desirable, his whole existence in the last few years having been groomed to that purpose.

And so they desired him.

But it was never with that same easy physical affection, that same easy closeness that he could see between other weres. 

It was like there was a wall between him and the rest of the world.

And really, it wasn’t like Victor wanted any of them to touch him, and that was another problem: at this point, Victor couldn’t even tell if they kept their distance from him because they saw him as something so other, or if he was othering himself, holding himself back and keeping that wall built up high and tight because he could never let down his guard around the Plisetskys. 

Most likely it was both.

Still he found himself wishing that there was someone in his life, anyone at all who looked at him without hostility or calculation in their eyes. Anyone apart from his family—who he could only see a few short moments out of the year—that would touch him without any agenda. With any kind of earnest feeling.

On his writing desk, Irina’s latest letter lay unanswered, left haphazardly on top of the pile. Under the scrutiny of Ilja and Mila, Victor had exchanged a few letters with her, much to her delight. In correspondence too she was a good conversationalist, witty and insightful, and Victor knew if he allowed it, he would be able to find… _something_ in her. Companionship, perhaps. Closeness. 

But Irina had made it abundantly clear that what she was aiming for was a mateship, no matter how much she insisted that she just wanted to _get to know him_. And that was not something that Victor could give her. She was still a woman, and Victor’s tastes skewed rather the other way. Victor might be able to imagine a purely platonic bond with someone he was otherwise compatible with. But he knew Irina and the Fedorovas would be expecting offspring. Children. And that was one obligation of a mateship that Victor would not be able to fulfil, nor was he willing to pretend he could. For Irina’s and his own sake both.

Still, in moments like these, when the tearing in his chest was particularly violent, he was tempted sometimes. Surely the prospect of a mateship lacking in love and the physical intimacy Viktor craved, but at least caring and genuine, would be better than what Viktor was enduring now.

Anything seemed better than this.

Victor turned away from the desk, trying to banish the thoughts out of his mind. As things stood, most likely he wouldn’t get any say in the matter anyway. 

In the end, Nikolai would be the one to decide what Victor was to do, and it would be on Victor to comply. As long as the treaty was extant, he was under purview of the Plisetskys, as they liked to remind him. They made his decisions. They guided his life.

And an end to the treaty was not in sight.

Almost thirty years Victor had been separated from his family now, long enough for young Yuri to grow from a pup to a young adult, and yet a true peace between the Plisetskys and the Nikiforovs didn’t seem any closer.

If there had been any negotiations in the interim, Victor hadn’t been privy to them, but there was still so much animosity and resentment towards the Nikiforovs in this house. He didn’t know what it was like on the other side, of course, but he couldn’t picture true peace anywhere in the near future.

This tentative armistice was all they had right now. 

And it was on Victor to make sure it didn’t escalate again.

With a sigh he lowered himself down on the edge of his bed, feet shuffling restlessly on the soft, worn carpet. Opening the top drawer, he pulled out a well-loved book, one of his favourite novels, the edges faded with use, the margins filled with notes. 

From between the pages he pulled a single photograph, the only possession he had been allowed to bring into the Plisetsky house, apart from the clothes he had worn on his back all those years ago.

The picture was yellowed with age, the edges cracked, but the people on it were still perfectly visible.

There was Victor himself, adolescent, his long hair tied loosely at his back, his smile bright. There were three people at his back, all with the same bright blue eyes as Victor’s own, even though the colour couldn’t be discerned on the picture. His father, his mother, and his Aunt Zsófia, as he had called her, although she had his mother’s mate, not his actual aunt. 

There was only the four of them in the picture, though Victor remembered they had taken more photos that day, with his siblings, too, and his aunt Tanya, and the whole family. But this was the one he had been given to take with him. This was the one that he had learnt to remember his family by. There were no words for the bitter pain whenever Victor realised that he barely remembered the faces of the other members of his family, except for the ones he occasionally saw at functions. He hadn’t seen his siblings grow up. He hadn’t seen Aunt Tanya find a mate and have children of her own. There were all sorts of other life events that had taken place in all of their lives that held the utmost importance for all of them, and Victor didn’t even know about them, much less having the chance to experience it with them.

This was something that no one could ever give back to him.

But this was his sacrifice to make.

They had all made their sacrifices.

In the war, members of the pack had lost life and limbs, had grieved loved ones and dealt with the strain of the battle. And if the war broke out again, more sacrifices would be made by his family, by the people whose pack he had once been an integral part of. 

Even if Victor hadn’t been so young still, he wouldn’t have been able to fight with his family, for his family, nor could he do it now, if the treaty should be broken. 

This was the only thing he could do to keep his family safe, to do his part in its survival. He could keep the peace and make sure no one else had to die, even if it was at the expense of his own freedom.

He had seen what the war had done to his family. He had seen what an all-out battle between werewolves meant. He had seen how it had torn his mother apart when she had lost Zsófia. He had seen first hand—and for a long time born the brunt of—Nikolai’s rage and despair at the death of his daughter, little Yuri’s mother. Victor knew, if the conflict flared up again, it was as likely that both families would annihilate each other as it was that one would triumph.

Victor ran his fingertips along the cracked edges of the photograph, a tangible reminder of why he was here. Of why he needed to be strong.

He flinched as the door to his room creaked, hastily shoving the picture back between the pages of the book and clutching it firmly as his head whipped around. The tension left his body again in a deep sigh as quickly as it had seized him when he saw Ace’s furry muzzle pushing open the door and slinking into the room.

Victor watched, still trying to calm his rapidly beating heart, as the wolf padded past the bed, shoulders tense and ears drooping with discontent. Curling up on the floor in a corner of the room, he tucked his nose under his front paws like he was trying to hide from the world. 

Victor could relate.

“Oh Ace”, he murmured, having tucked his book back into the night stand, “Bad day, huh?”

The wolf opened one shining amber eye to peer up at him and blinked slowly.

Victor gave a weak smile and got to his feet, crossing the room only to unceremoniously drop onto the floor next to Ace, back leaning against the wall, Ace’s eye following him all the while.

“I saw Mila give you a hard time earlier”, he continued, “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

Predictably Victor did not receive a response, except for Ace tucking his face a little more under his paws.

“I suppose she just wants any entertainment and doesn’t really care about what kind. Well, she is barely more than a kid still.”

Ace whined low in his throat, eyes squeezing shut.

“Oh, puppy…”, he whispered, “I wish I could do something to help you.”

Thoughtlessly he reached out to card his fingers through Ace’s soft fur, but he had barely touched it when the wolf’s head snapped up and with a snarl his jaw closed around Victor’s arm.

Victor flinched back at the sharp pain of Ace’s teeth piercing his skin, blood welling up immediately and running down his arm. Ace was glaring at him, still growling lowly, but his bite was shallow, almost careful—not crushing Victor’s bones as Victor knew he easily could. This was a warning more than an actual attack, something akin to a slap on the wrist.

Victor sighed and lifted his other hand, palm out in a defensive gesture. He should have known better.

“I’m sorry”, he said, voice gentle, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that without warning. I shouldn’t have done it without permission. You’re right.”

Ace’s growl subsided, and after a few moments of hesitation he released Victor’s arm with a huff. 

Pulling it back and cradling it carefully against his body, Victor regarded Ace contemplatively. 

“I’m just like them, aren’t I?”, he murmured to himself. “Here I just was, contemplating how they treat me like they have some kind of claim over me, over my body. And yours, too. And then I go and do the same thing.” He shook his head. “Just because you are… well”, he hesitated, “what you are… that doesn’t mean you deserve this. You should have sovereignty over yourself same as everyone else. You’re not a pet. They don’t own you, and neither do I.”

Ace’s eyes were still fixed on him, ears now perked up attentively but something like a frown on his face. Something about that unwavering gaze made Victor want to squirm.

Then the wolf pushed up onto his feet and slowly shuffled closer, closing the small distance between them. Victor remained very still, unsure what to expect from the sudden closeness, muscles tensing in case the need for a fight should arise. And then Ace dipped down his head and started licking at the blood on Victor’s arm.

For a few long moments Victor was frozen, all of his being honed in on the sensation of warm, wet blood on his skin being replaced by a warm, wet tongue.

“Ace…?”, he whispered, but the wolf did not react, just continued his ministrations as Victor tentatively stretched out his arm a little further toward him. 

Ace was _licking his wounds_.

Victor didn’t realise he was crying until the first tears crashed down upon his shirt, staining the fabric dark. Lifting his uninjured hand, he wiped at his eyes, trying to stifle a sob, but something must have escaped him, because Ace lifted his head, cocked to the side, and peered at him curiously.

“I’m sorry”, Victor said, still in a whisper for fear that his voice might crack if he spoke any louder, “I’m sorry, I’m okay, it’s just… nobody has done this for me in such a long time.”

Licking each other’s wounds was just part of the good tone among weres—not only did it help the injuries heal faster, it was also taking care of each other after returning from the hunt, it was bonding after a playful fight.

And it wasn’t like Victor had been injured all that often, but no one else but himself had licked his wounds since he had left his childhood home.

The sensation was so painfully familiar and comforting in such a deep and primal way that Victor couldn’t help the tears that continued flowing freely as Ace resumed his task.

“I feel so silly”, he murmured, sniffling, unsure if he was talking to himself or to Ace. “I don’t know why I’m…” He shook his head. “It feels so stupid when you can’t even understand me. I know you’re just an animal, but… this means so much to me.”

Ace tensed and lifted his head again, slowly this time, ears twitching. His bright eyes were wide at first, then narrowed, and if Victor didn’t know any better he would have thought that some unnameable emotion was brewing behind them. 

Then he turned abruptly and trotted out of the room.

“Ace…?”, Victor called after him, but his whispering steps kept receding down the hall. 

Brow furrowed in confusion, Victor looked down at his arm.

The bleeding had stopped.


	7. interlude III - relent

Winter deepened and food was scarce.

The forest a dead place, abandoned.

No more scurrying in the underbrush, the deer skittish shadows between the barren limbs of trees.

With each hunt he ventured further, chasing.

With each hunt he returned a little less satisfied.

The first time he encountered people at the edge of the wood, he ran.

So he did the second and the third time, his fear stronger than his hunger, overpowering the tempting smell of hot blood and fatty flesh under skin.

But the winter was long and the wolf was strong.

Eventually, he relented.

His first kill was almost easy, a lonesome wanderer, unsuspecting.

A leap, a bite.

Death.

It wasn’t until the bones were crunching between his teeth in the safety of his cove that it caught up with him.

The taste on his tongue suddenly acrid, all sweetness forgotten.

A whine in his ears, despairing.

A death under his claws, a death at the point of his teeth.

A human death.

He leapt back, a springtide retreating.

All sweetness forgotten, and yet…

He was salivating.

A death is a death is a death.

A hare, a hart, a human.

Soon he forgot.

The fourth time mattered less than the third mattered less than the second mattered less than the first.

Hunger drove him forward and soon winter ended, but it was easy. It was satisfying. It was good.

The hunt was the only thing that mattered.


	8. chapter IV: the abject

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> small **CW for this chapter** in the end notes!

Victor should have expected it when Nikolai summoned him.

A part of him did expect it, he supposed, though mostly he still had held out hope that there was some other event, some society function or other that required his attention.

Not that he wouldn’t resent being sent out for more bowing and scraping, more disingenuous flirting and joviality on behalf of a family that detested him. But it would have been better than this.

“You are to be mated to Irina Fedorova.”

The words, offered without preamble when Victor entered Nikolai’s office, were like a wash of cold water, jolting through Victor with sharp awareness, making everything around him go muted.

It was not a surprise, in the end.

Over the last several weeks, Irina’s letters had become more frequent and more affectionate, more definite, speaking of the future, of family, of perspectives. Victor had tried to keep his responses non-committal without being offensive, but it did not appear that Irina was put off at all.

Sometimes he wondered if the Plisetskys took the liberty of revising his letters before they were sent out.

And then there had been that terribly stiff affair of dinner with the Fedorovs, a long evening of Nikolai and Kolja talking politics with Lord Fedorov while Lady Fedorova shot distasteful glances and sharp questions at Victor, contrasting with her daughter’s conspiratorial smiles. It had felt like a joke everyone but Victor was in on.

And now…

Victor swallowed, his throat painfully dry.

“Do I get any say in the matter?”

Nikolai looked up from whatever paperwork he was pretending was occupying him then, peering at Victor.

“This is a very favourable match, Vitya. You can count yourself lucky to get a mate from a family like the Fedorovs.”

Victor gritted his teeth.

“That’s not what I asked.”

Nikolai leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach and looking at Victor with an expression of benevolence that Victor could almost have believed.

“I was under the impression that you desired this match. Am I mistaken?”

Staring at him, Victor shook his head in disbelief. “I desired it? Whatever would give you that impression?”

“Did you not take up correspondence with Lady Fedorova yourself? And Mila told me you were rather comfortable with her at that ball.”

“No, but that’s—”, Victor tried to cut in, but Nikolai continued.

“And did you not continue corresponding with her through the last several months of your own volition? Surely you would have broken it off if you were so inclined. After all, as you make so sure to remind us, you won’t do anything that you don’t feel like doing.”

Victor clenches his fists at his sides. “You know I couldn’t.”

“And whyever not?” The indulgent smile that crept onto Nikolai’s face made Victor shiver. “I was given to understand that Lady Fedorova made her intentions abundantly clear in her correspondence, and you did not once rebuke her. And when the Fedorovs were here, did you once speak up to protest? Surely you couldn’t have been ignorant of what that dinner was intended to do, observant as you are. Will you blame me for thinking that this union was in your interest as well?”

“You know it is not”, Victor hissed through clenched teeth.

“I really did not”, Nikolai said with a regretful shake of his head, “and I do wish you would have told me sooner. Breaking off the match at this late point would be a most serious offence to the Fedorovs, so I am afraid it is not an option to risk the good diplomatic relations of your family and theirs.”

Victor had to hold himself back from snarling at him.

“This isn’t about my family”, he said, “This isn’t for me. This is only for you. You only want to get on Fedorov’s good side by mating me off to his daughter.”

Nikolai laughed, as one would laugh at a school boy’s silly joke. “And how would this benefit me, exactly? This is not a union between Fedorov and Plisetsky. It’s between Fedorov and Nikiforov. I gain nothing from this match. I only have your and your family’s best interest at heart.”

Victor scoffed.

“Don’t make me laugh! You have not once had my best interest at heart! Is this even legal? Does the treaty even allow for you to decide on a mateship for me?”

Something sharp flickered across Nikolai’s face, and he leaned forward in his chair, utterly serious now.

“The treaty”, he began quietly, “decrees that I take you into my home and raise you as my own son, to foster understanding and closeness between your and my family. Since you have come to join us, I have done nothing but take care of you. I have fed you and clothed you and kept you safe. I have given you ample opportunity of education, occupation and socialisation. Which of these opportunities you did or did not take has been your choice, not mine. I have watched you grow and remain as sullen, ungrateful and unsociable as you were when you first arrived. Yet I kept my end of the bargain. I wished to see you settled and happy as I would to see my own son.” Nikolai’s mouth turned down at these words like it was something distasteful. “I gave you chance upon chance to meet other weres, to find a mate of your choice. You chose to remain solitary, so I let you be. Until you finally let down that impenetrable guard of yours and made an actual connection with someone. I go out of my way to arrange your mateship, only to have my efforts thrown back into my face so rudely. I suppose it’s my own fault for expecting anything like gratitude after everything I’ve done for you over the years.”

Victor stared at Nikolai, speechless and shaking with rage. It took a few long moments before he found his words, and his voice was thready with barely contained anger as he spoke.

“If this is how you treat your sons”, he said, “then I feel sorry for them. Perhaps it was for the best that Yuri grew up far from here, with people who understand the actual meaning of family.”

Nikolai twitched at his words, and pushed himself to his feet. For a moment Victor thought he would shout, but when he spoke his voice still held that same dangerous calm.

“I see your ungratefulness knows no bounds. I bear responsibility for you while you reside in my house, but if you will reject that responsibility, it is on you to break the treaty and accept the consequences of that.”

Victor’s body went cold.

“What?”

“You heard me”, Nikolai said, slow, emphatic.

“So these are my choices?”, Victor asked, voice hollow. “I get mated to Lady Fedorova, or I break the treaty?”

Nikolai’s only response was to raise an eyebrow at him.

He knew as well as Victor did that it was not a choice at all. If Victor broke the treaty while in this house, his life was forfeit. He would be immediately considered an enemy of the Plisetskys. Death would be swift and brutal, if he was lucky. Slow and excruciating if he was less so. This would lead to immediate retribution from the Nikiforovs, and before long the war between the two families would be in full swing once more, no holds barred.

Victor remained silent, frozen, chewing up the words crawling up his throat, choking on them.

The silence stretched, until Nikolai nodded.

“Pack up any personal effects you may have and say your goodbyes. Ilja will decide on a selection of your wardrobe that you may take with you. You are to be delivered to the Fedorov’s house in a week’s time.”

Victor didn’t trust himself to speak. He turned and left the room, letting the door snap shut behind him.

* * *

Victor wasn’t quite sure how he had ended up here.

He just knew that the thought of returning to his stuffy cramped bedroom, his prison cell, had seemed unbearable. The though of remaining under the same roof as those people for even a minute longer.

He needed air, he needed to get out, away.

So now he stood at the edge of the lake that sprawled over the Plisetsky property, watching the waves being whipped hither and thither by the biting cold wind, a cool mist of water settling on his face.

He had tried to collect his racing thoughts for a while, had tried to think his way out of the situation, convinced that there must be some way to pull himself out of this trap. But whichever way he sent his mind, he ran into dead ends, into abysses and brittle ground giving way beneath him. There was no way out.

If he refused to be mated to Irina, he would break the treaty.

If he ran away, he would break the treaty.

Even if he informed his family of Nikolai’s plans he would break the treaty; he was not allowed to communicate any inside information to the Nikiforovs.

*Staring at the dark, tumultuous waters, he had even considered another option, briefly, but it had soon be dismissed. If he took his own life while under the care of the Plisetskys, it would be considered a breach of their responsibility to keep him safe.

No matter what he did, he would be causing a war.

Eventually, the certainty had settled into him. He would have to follow through.

He would have to enter a mateship with Irina Fedorova, relinquish the last of his autonomy, the last of his hopes for a happy life somewhere down the line.

To keep his family safe.

When the veil of cold mist condensed into a drizzle of actual rain, Victor retreated into the small gazebo by the lake’s edge, seeking some shelter from the rain and the cutting wind.

Dropping heavily onto the wooden bench along the edge of the structure, he listened to the howl of the squall, the thrumming of the rain on the gazebo’s roof, drowning out all other noises, drowning out his thoughts, and felt some kind of calm settling over him.

The decision was made, the outcome was inevitable. There was nothing he could do to change it now.

He could stop fighting.

He had been tense for so long, waiting for whatever new chicanery the Plisetskys had in store for him, dreading every day. Now it was over. They had done their damage. He would leave their house.

He wouldn’t get to go home, but anything must be better than staying in this cursed house any longer. And while the Fedorovs clearly disliked him, at least Irina would treat him kindly.

Maybe this was the best that he could hope for.

This was the thought that kept circling over and over in his mind in the rhythm of the rain’s patter on the roof, as a deep, heavy numbness settled over him.

_It’s not as bad as it could have been._

He stayed out there for a long time, darkness descending around him. Cold and damp crept into his bones but he barely felt it. He let his thoughts drift away from him, out into the rain, into the dark, into the wilderness, far enough away from him that he didn’t hear any steps approaching.

He flinched when he felt the touch of a wet nose and hot breath on his cold, stiff hands.

Amber eyes were glowing up at him.

Victor let out a long breath.

“Ace”, he murmured, “what are you doing here?”

The wolf’s head nudged gently against his knee.

“Were you looking for me? How did you—?”

Ace’s tongue darted out, licking over his nose as he gave Victor an unimpressed look.

“Of course”, Victor said, huffing out a breath, “of course you wouldn’t have any trouble finding me.”

Ace made a sound like a hum and shook himself thoroughly, sending a spray of rain through the gazebo and over Victor, who couldn’t help but recoil from the sensation, even though it hardly made a difference with how cold and wet he already was. Then the wolf settled back on his haunches, looking up at Victor expectantly and nudging him once again with his nose.

Victor shook his head slightly. “What do you want, Ace?”

Ace turned his head to look over his shoulder meaningfully, peering into the darkness beyond the gazebo, where the mansion lay buried somewhere in the night.

“You want me to go inside”, Victor whispered. “I can’t. I can’t go back in there with those people.”

Ace’s look was quizzical—of course, he wouldn’t understand what the problem was—and again his long pink tongue darted out, licking at Victor’s hands this time. The warmth of it made Victor realise for the first time just how cold he was. He felt something tighten in his chest.

“They’re sending me away, Ace”, he said, voice hoarse and thin. “They’ve sold me off like cattle and now I’ll never get to go back to my family.”

Of course Ace didn’t reply, but his gaze was attentive and steady, his tongue still warm and comforting on Victor’s skin, and Victor found it all spilling out of him.

“I’m to be mated off to a woman I do not love, a woman I cannot love”, he said, “and I’m to spend the rest of my life… what, looking pretty? I can’t—”, hanging his head, he let out a shuddering sigh, “I’ve borne all their bullshit up to now holding fast to the belief that one day I would get to go back to my family, my pack, back to a place where I belong. I held out for the sake of peace, and now…” Victor shook his head. “Is there nothing left in this life that is my own? Are there no more choices to be made?”

Ace let out a quiet whine, no doubt sensing his distress, and nudged against him again, his hands, his knees. Victor realised he was shivering, but he couldn’t bring himself to move.

With a light but powerful movement of muscle, Ace hopped up on the bench beside him, his weight sending a slight thump through the wood. Before Victor could even react, the wolf draped himself over his lap, covering him in a hundred and twenty pounds of warm, breathing fur. Victor sucked in a sharp breath, the surprise and the heat radiating from the wolf’s body stopping his shivering in its tracks.

“Ace…”, he murmured. Victor could feel his slow, even breaths, the way his rib cage expanded against Victor’s legs. His tail was twitching lazily.

Victor swallowed heavily and raised one hand, letting it hover for a moment just over Ace’s head, until he raised it just a little, pushing against Victor’s hand. Taking this as the permission that it was, Victor ran his fingers through Ace’s soft fur, scratching around his ears until the wolf’s eyes blinked closed.

“I don’t think I’ll see you again once I leave here”, Victor said. “I suppose I should hope not to see you again, because if I did it likely wouldn’t be under friendly circumstances. But…”, Victor sighed, focusing on the thick warm tufts of fur underneath his fingertips, “I’m going to miss you, you know.”

For a few long moments silence settled, as Victor tried to only focus on the sensations around him—the silky fur, Ace‘s warmth, the drum of rain overhead and the rich, earthy scent of the lake. But try as he might, his thoughts kept slipping away from him, kept returning to Nikolai‘s words, his unspoken ultimatum.

_You are to be delivered to the Fedorov‘s house in a week's time._

Delivered, like he was a parcel, a purchase, a pretty present.

“I hate this“, he whispered to himself, “I hate feeling so powerless. I hate that this is all I ever am. That I let them do this to me. But it‘s not like there‘s anything else that I can do.“

Ace rumbled lowly under his hand, his paw pressing slightly against Victor‘s thigh like a squeeze of reassurance.

Victor nodded thoughtfully into the darkness.

“I know“, he said, “I know. At least I have you, Ace. Even if there‘s nothing else, for now, at least, I still have you.“

The words had barely left his mouth when Ace suddenly lifted his head, ears perking up.

“What is it?“, Victor asked, thinking that the wolf had perhaps heard or smelled something. He tried to focus his own senses, but the rush of rain drowned out anything else, washed all the scents out of the night air. Before he could say anything else Ace had already pushed up from his lap, leaping off the bench without ceremony, tail raised.

“Ace?“, Victor asked, but with only a quick look back over his shoulder, a light gleaming in those bright amber eyes, the wolf ran off into the darkness.

Victor stared after him, suddenly cold again, feeling his throat tighten.

“Ha.“ He scoffed, the sound turning more bitter than he had intended. “Good to know the feeling is mutual.“

* * *

Victor did not have many belongings to pack up.

In fact, it was downright ridiculous how little he had accumulated over the last thirty years of his life.

A few books given as gifts or bought from his own sparse money. Not many—most of what he read had come from the Plisetsky‘s library, and he had seldom had the opportunity to purchase anything for himself.

Some other trinkets—jewellery, bits and pieces of decoration, a fan—given to him by admirers or friends. The photograph of his family and the clothes he‘d worn when he‘d left home, carefully kept all these years even though he had long outgrown them.

And then of course his weapons—a set of meticulously maintained and honed knives and an engraved handaxe that weighed just right in his hands.

This meagre collection was joined by a few sets of fine clothing and shoes, selected by Ilja as Nikolai had promised, and stowed away carefully in a trunk, complete with neckties, gloves, hats and other various accessories. After all, Victor was to make a good impression on his new mate and her family.

Looking down on this sad collection that contained what had been the greater part of Victor‘s life, he felt hollowed out, swiped clean.

His life had been nothing, his possessions were none—and likewise he himself was empty.

Perhaps that was all he was ever meant to be.

Empty of purpose.

Empty of drive.

Empty of a will of his own.

Perhaps that was why he was born the way he was.

There was no wolf in him.

Tonight was the night he would leave the Plisetsky house.

Perhaps he should be feeling relief.

He had said his goodbyes, such as they were. Most of the family seemed to be as glad to see the last of him as he should be of them. Dunja had decided to see his departure as a personal betrayal and had just growled at him to send him off. Mila had given him a host of lewd advice on how to deal with his new mate, a shit-eating grin on her face. Victor wasn‘t entirely sure how much she knew of the situation, if she perhaps genuinely thought she had done him a favour with her matchmaking.

But the only one he actually cared to take his leave from was the only one who wouldn‘t show his face. Victor had seen barely a hair of Ace in his last week here at the estate. Whether the wolf was just constantly out on assignments or consciously avoiding him, Victor wasn‘t sure. He wouldn‘t even put it beyond Nikolai to keep him intentionally occupied during Victor‘s last days here, just as a final act of spite. Most likely it hadn‘t remained unnoticed that he and the wolf had a decent relationship.

Yet Victor couldn‘t quite stop thinking about the way Ace had walked away from him—after biting him, at first, and then again when they had been in the gazebo. He wondered if he had unknowingly done something to offend him, or rebuke him. If that was even possible. As much as Victor went over their interactions, he couldn‘t see anything in them that might be interpreted as an aggression from a canine perspective. Wolves‘ behaviours were close enough to those of weres that Victor felt confident in his assessment.

And yet, he couldn‘t quite help the feeling that he was being punished for something.

“It‘s time.“

Kolja‘s voice behind him startled Victor out of his thoughts. He didn‘t bother to acknowledge him, just bent to pick up his luggage and turned to walk out of the room.

Before the entrance a carriage was waiting for him, flanked by Georgi and Sasha, who would accompany him to make sure he got to the Fedorov house in one piece. A few more weres from the pack were milling about, acting as a vanguard and rearguard.

Nikolai was standing beside the door, watching with an impassive face as Victor stowed his luggage away in the back of the carriage. He felt like he could feel a dozen eyes burning on his neck.

He straightened up, keeping his head high as he turned to face Nikolai.

“Make sure to behave yourself properly”, the pack leader said, voice curt, “Your conduct will reflect on your family.”

Without deigning to acknowledge his words, Victor raised an eyebrow.

“Will my family learn about my new whereabouts?”

Nikolai’s expression tightened. “They will be informed in due course. Now stop dawdling. The journey takes a few hours, and you are to arrive before sunrise.”

Nodding sharply, Victor turned away, letting his gaze sweep one final time over the grounds surrounding them, when a dark shape on the crest of a hill caught his eye.

Even in the darkness the silhouette, outlined against the starry sky, was familiar.

Victor held his gaze for a long moment, and when the wolf inclined his head slowly in a nod, his eyes flashed golden through the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **CW:** Warning for very brief, very idle suicidal ideation in this chapter.   
> If you'd like to avoid it, skip the paragraph starting with a *.  
> 
> 
> Part 5 posts on Mar 7!


	9. interlude IV - root

The forest was his.

His skin of bark, his teeth of wood and stone.

Moss his fur.

Leaves were his blanket and his bed and every path, every tread, every step was his home.

His territory.

Others rarely ventured close; he chased them off, blood and tendon.

They left behind their scent of fear, a protective veil around his home.

Winters passed and summers rose; budding leaves and foals stalking and decay.

Food was plentiful for one who didn’t mind its source.

Dire winters took him closer to the humans’ steads, but the fair seasons were all his own.

The forest, his.

Until the day came when one entered his realm.

They brought no sound, no turmoil, no reek of fear.

They brought the breath of their lungs, the forest air. The hardness of their bones an extension of every tree’s root.

The forest wasn’t theirs, they were one, the same.

Their skin changing leaves, their eyes a winter sky.

They did not run when they saw him.

They did not shout or fight.

A pause, eye against eye, a moment of madness meeting a moment of frenzy.

Then they smiled, and it was sad.

“Oh, aren’t you far away from home?”

Their words a strangeness in his ears that made him start, a familiarity that soothed him.

His teeth bared, he glowered, groused, growled.

An indifference.

No retreat.

“When I heard someone had made my woods their own, I did not expect it to be someone like you.”

When he lunged, they laughed, and something in him quivered. Stasis.

“Don’t bother, little one. This place has been mine since long before you were, and long after you will pass. But I have no desire to take your home from you.”

They knelt and their eyes were blades of steel and smooth worn river rocks.

“You’ve been here for a long time, haven’t you? Too long, almost…”

A soft voice.

“Tell me, what’s your name?”


	10. chapter V: answers impatient

The journey was just about as uncomfortable as Victor had expected.

Not in a physical sense—the Plisetsky’s coach was perfectly serviceable, the horses calm, though the quality of the roads oftentimes left something to be desired.

But in terms of the strain and the atmosphere of the journey… both Georgi and Sasha had made it very clear from the beginning that they had no desire to keep him company during their travel, though one of them was supposed to look over him while the other one scouted outside.

In the end Sasha had bitten their younger cousin into submission, leaving Victor with Georgi’s delightful companionship throughout the long hours of the night.

He would rather have spent them on his own. The silence in the carriage was oppressive for the first hour or so, both men squarely avoiding the other’s eyes. It was too dark to read in the carriage, and Victor was far too tense to sleep, so there was nothing left to him but to peer outside at the bare shadows of trees passing by, or down at his own hands. Even this was preferable, however, to the moment Georgi decided to open his mouth.

“It is a mystery to me why you, of all people, are allowed to form a mateship, when Nikolai still refuses me to mate my darling Anya.”

Judging by the glint in his eye one might have thought Victor himself had put the idea in his mind.

“That seems like something you should take up with him”, he said, trying to convey his utter disinterest in the conversation, “There was no choice for me in the matter.”

Georgi scoffed.

“Only someone like you would turn up his nose at a match with a Fedorov. A Nikiforov down to your arrogant bones, are you not?”

Victor sighed, still keeping his gaze fixed stubbornly out the window.

“I thought you bore no ill will to my family, Gosha? Aren’t you always so quick to affirm that you are in favour of the treaty?”

A sniff. “The treaty, yes. But only because I do not condone needless bloodshed and carnage. Enough families have been destroyed, enough fated love lost in this endless feud. Once my Anya and I are together, I will not have us torn apart by the horrors of a war.”

“How noble you are.”

“Yes.” Georgi pulled back his lips in the facsimile of a smile, baring his teeth. “Nobility is what you would care about, is it not?”

Victor did not make the effort to contradict him, though Georgi was not at all deterred from speaking. In lieu of any more or less thinly veiled allusions to Victor and his family, he instead took it upon himself to speak extensively on the great woes of his and Anya’s relationship remaining unconfirmed.

Victor tuned him out, focusing on the darkness deepening outside as they drove further into the forest. There was dense wilderness between the Plisetsky and Fedorov estates, several hours of travel along a single dirt path carving a line through the underbrush. The night air was oppressive, a density around them like they were pushing their way through mud, and all the sounds of nature, of the beasts of the woods and the wind, were drowned out by the turning of the carriage wheels and the horses’ steady breaths.

There was nothing in these woods to worry Victor except what was waiting for him at the other end. Nothing hiding between the trees for them to be scared of—if anything, whatever was hiding between the trees should be scared of them. And yet Victor couldn’t quite suppress the shiver of—was it premonition? Superstition? Or was it just a night breeze?—that ran over him when the first drops of rain began drumming down on the roof of the carriage, lashed on by a whistling wind.

Between the clouds ducking low, the depth of the night and the impenetrable forest around them, they were dipped in almost complete darkness now. Even Victor’s eyes, keener by far than a human’s, though not as keen as a were’s in wolf form would be, were hardly able to penetrate the blanket of obscurity draped around them.

How the horses were still finding their way, how they had not yet refused to take a single more step forward mystified him, but then he supposed that the threat of a werewolf snapping at your hind was a powerful motivator. He would have to trust Sasha and the rest of the vanguard to keep them on their true path even through the storm, loath as he was to put any of his faith into the Plisetskys.

Georgi seemed unconcerned with the change in weather and the wind clawing at their vehicle, though he too had fallen silent now, head tilted up to listen to the drumbeat of rain on wood.

“The weather will make for slower progress”, he murmured eventually, and for once there didn’t seem to be any vitriol in his words, or at least none directed at Victor. “But we should have made it about halfway now.”

He took out a timepiece, consulting it, and nodded to himself in assent. “We will be crossing the borders of our land soon. We shall see if Sasha actually checks in for their shift change.”

Victor suppressed a scoff. By the sound of his voice Georgi was just as unconvinced that Sasha would trade in their post out there in the teeming, wild darkness for one in the confinement of a carriage. This was the kind of weather, the kind of work that Sasha lived for. Victor could see them in his mind’s eye, howling madly into the rain, could hear it echo around him almost.

Victor would not at all mind if Sasha should eschew him—while Georgi was tedious company, being stuck in a coach with a surly and unwilling Sasha and the distinct odour of wet dog for a few more hours would be closer to unbearable.

Another howl reverberated around them, closer now and—yes, it had not been in Victor’s mind, the weres’ shouts rising, drawn out. It wasn’t Sasha’s voice—at least not at first, though their distinct pitch joined in soon. But then Victor would not recognise each member of the vanguard and the rearguard by their voice. What he did recognise, however, were their messages.

Not the details of them, lost to the noise of the storm and the comparative dullness of his ears, but the main signals were clear enough.

Caution.

Danger.

Attack.

By the widening of his eyes, Georgi across from Victor had discerned at least as much, if not more, his pupils blowing out in what might be fear or eagerness—or, judging by his scent, a mixture of both.

Victor’s own heart rate jumped, too, muscles tensing as his body automatically braced itself for a fight. Before either of them could act, however, the skittish whinny of horses was audible outside and the carriage jerked quickly forward, swaying on the uneven path. Then there were snarls and more whinnies and the coach halted just as abruptly.

The hot, titillating scent of fresh horse blood wafted into the carriage.

Victor and Georgi caught one another’s eyes, wide but their pupils contracted, and Victor could already see Georgi’s teeth lengthening, fur spreading even as he growled: “What the devil is going on out there?”

He was out the door, in full wolf form and dashing through the rain within seconds.

Victor took a moment longer, peering carefully out the now open carriage door into the darkness. Of course his handaxe was in his luggage, but he had at least a couple of his knives stowed away in his boots, just in case. He found himself reaching for them now, slipping them easily into his palms before ducking out into the night.

He could still barely see, between the rain and the darkness, so he closed his eyes and let himself be guided by his ears and his nose. This, too, did not prove easy; smells were washed out of the air quickly by the rain, the wind whipping away too many sounds. Nonetheless he could easily make out the sound of fighting; were against were. They really had been attacked; but by whom?

Smelling Sasha’s distinct scent not far from him, with at least three other weres close to them, Victor made his way in that direction, hoping that they might be able to provide some insight into the situation. A shape bounded past him on his way and his hands twitched up automatically, ready to defend himself, but it seemed whoever it was was on his side, as they didn’t show any interest in fighting him.

Sasha was fighting three weres along with another one of Victor’s guards, and despite Sasha’s usual ruthlessness it did not appear to be an easy fight. Victor hesitated only for a moment—should he really help the Plisetskys? Who knew if the attackers weren’t on his side? Perhaps it was even his own pack, having somehow gotten wind of the plan and trying to get him out of his hopeless situation—but the decision was taken out of his hand when he was tackled by another wolf, a powerful jaw burrowing deep into his shoulder, tearing.

Victor couldn’t quite suppress a shout of pain and brought up his other arm, knife in hand, to slice at the wolf’s flank.

A yelp, but the beast did not relent, digging further into flesh and bone, paws coming up looking for purchase. Victor automatically ducked his head to protect his throat and pulled out his knife only to bury it to the hilt in the side of the wolf‘s neck. This was enough to release their iron grip and Victor took the chance to kick at the were‘s underbelly, sending them flying backwards, where he hoped they would stay.

Flicking the blood off his knife, Victor took a moment to catch his breath, trying to refocus his senses and orient himself. The smell of blood—his own and the were‘s—was heavy in his nostrils, the pain making him dizzy, though he knew his injury wasn‘t too severe, given some time to heal. There were sounds of fighting all around him, and he recognised too few voices to confidently tell who he should be fighting.

Should he try to make use of the chaos to steal away into the night—escape? This might be his chance, while his guards were occupied with the fight, and in case their attackers were not on his good side, it might be the smartest course of action. He certainly wouldn‘t stick around and wait for someone to kill him.

Leaving the carriage and the smell of horses behind him, Victor ducked away between the trees in the direction where he could hear the least fighting. He briefly mourned his few possessions left behind in the trunk, particularly the picture of his family and his handaxe, but it could not be helped.

His human form was a hindrance and a blessing both. While he wasn‘t able to move around quite as silently as the wolves, he also knew his scent was less distinct to them. Those who did take note of him would often dismissed him as no threat at all, or else thought him to be an easy kill, the underestimation working in Victor‘s favour in a fight.

He cut down another were who tried to get in his way, a quick flurry of slashes with his knives. He had to accept more bites and gauges in his skin in return due to the close range of fighting, but he held fast to his weapons, not quite daring to throw them in this darkness, too wary of being unable to find them again.

Making his way deeper into the forest, away from the path, he was almost clear of the fighting when he heard thundering paws running up behind him.

He managed to turn just in time to be hit square in the chest by the weight of a fully grown were, knocking him over backwards and the air out of his lungs as he hit the forest floor hard.

Cursing soundlessly for lack of air, Victor brought up his arms to protect his throat, knives turned out to keep some distance between him and the were‘s snapping jaw, at the same time trying to buck his hips and kick his legs to throw the beast off.

The were was relentless, though, their pale eyes boring into him with a bloodthirsty frenzy, claws digging into his shoulders to keep him pinned to the ground. They snapped at Victor‘s forearm, tearing out a chunk of flesh and a yell of pain out of his lungs. Bringing up his other hand, Victor sliced across their face, sending them reeling back, but their weight remained on his chest, too heavy for him to throw off.

Victor could start to feel his energy draining with the struggle, the blood loss and the air still being pressed out of his lungs. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to fight them off.

The question was rendered moot, however, when another were pounced on the pair of them, momentarily doubling the weight pressing on Victor, and he could feel his ribcage creak in his chest. It didn’t last, though; the second were grabbed the first by the scruff of his neck and rolled both of them over, dragging their weight off of Victor.

Victor sucked in a grateful breath, coughing, and tried to scramble into a sitting position. He could see the two weres grappling, biting and clawing at each other viciously, the first one’s pale eyes shining dully in the darkness while the other had their back to Victor.

He didn’t wait to see how the fight would end, stumbling to his feet and backwards, hoping to make his escape while they were occupied. Before he got very far, however, he was arrested by the sound of a voice.

The fighting around him had been anything but quiet—there had been noises, growling, snarls and yelps abounding, mixed in with the shuffling of paws on the forest floor, the cracking of branches underfoot, the howling of the wind and the patter of the rain on the leaves. But one thing Victor had not heard ever since Georgi had leapt out of the carriage was words.

And words these clearly were, even though they sounded nothing like any voice Victor had ever heard—gravelly and rough and something clumsy about it, like the mouth that spoke them was unused to forming them.

“Phichit, take him away! Bring him to Nikiforov!”

Victor froze only for a moment before hurrying on—blinking rapidly through the rain and the pain, trying to process the words. Had he heard them correctly? Had someone said his name? So they were actually here after him—but to what end? Were they friend or foe, trying to help him or to kill him? He couldn’t tell, but he certainly wouldn’t stick around to find out.

Before he got more than a few paces further, however, another shape appeared at his side, so suddenly and completely soundlessly that Victor flinched away hard, swearing. It was a human shape, smaller than him, but that’s all that he could tell before there was a hand linked through his elbow like they were old friends, and a cheery voice clear as rain next to him.

“Don’t worry. I’ll look after you!”

And all sounds died around him.

* * *

It was like being dunked into water, just for a second, and as he broke back out through the surface, the noises rushed back in.

Except they had changed.

Gone was the snarling and growling, countless running paws and sharp breaths.

Gone was the smell of blood in the air, except for his own.

What remained was only the rain and the darkness and the figure next to him.

Victor jerked away from him, stumbling backwards. “What the fuck?”, he hissed, “What did you do?”

Although Victor couldn’t see it, the grin was audible in the figure’s voice.

“Just took us a little ways away from the fighting. Was getting a little messy there, don’t you think?”

Victor blinked, his mind reeling as he tried to make sense of the words. It was impossible, he knew, but the evidence of his own senses told him it was true: The sounds and smells of the fight were gone, not even to be detected in the distance. The horses and the carriage had disappeared, and the smell of the forest around him was subtly different than it had been just a moment ago.

He was in a different place.

It was impossible.

“What are you?”, he blurted out, rather bluntly, but the figure only laughed.

“I’m Phichit”, they said, “I’m going to take you home.”

Their voice sounded much like a normal human voice, speaking to him in the common tongue. But they didn’t smell like a human. And not like a were either; in fact, they smelled like nothing much at all. All that Victor could detect was the rich, dark smell of earth, the sharpness of rotting leaves and fresh, clean rain.

“Home”, he echoed, his voice hollow, “and where would that be?”

“The proper one, of course”, Phichit replied, “I’m taking you to the Nikiforov Estate.”

Victor gaped at them.

"Why?“

Phichit raised an eyebrow. "Why? I was under the impression that you _wanted_ to go home.“

"I did. I do“, Victor hurried to amend, "But… why—how?“

They shrugged, keeping up their pace without concern for the conversation.

"Beats me. You‘ll have to take it up with Yuuri, I‘m just the errand boy here.“

"Wh—“, Victor barely kept himself from sputtering, "Yuri? Yuri Plisetsky is behind this?“

A hint of a frown could be seen on Phichit‘s face.

"I don‘t know his last name. So, maybe? But again, I‘m only the errand boy, and why am I admitting to that anyway? It‘s frankly humiliating. Are you coming or not?“

Though Victor‘s mind was still reeling, he hurried to keep pace, wary of being left behind on his own when he had no idea where he was.

"We‘ll have to continue there by conventional means“, Phichit kept chattering as if there was nothing whatsoever unusual about the situation, "I only took us away from the worst of the fighting, but your kind doesn‘t travel well like that. So by the soles of our feet it is.“

Victor‘s eyebrows drew together in a frown. "My… kind?“, he asked.

"Weres“, Phichit replied easily, "Well, all mortals, really.“

Victor could feel his breath catch for a moment, though he hoped Phichit hadn‘t noticed.

"… and you are…?“

A snicker from beside him. "Please.“

They kept walking on through the darkness, Victor trudging along beside Phichit, mind buzzing with questions and swirling with fatigue.

Sometimes he tried to ask some of them out loud: who had attacked them and why? Where exactly were they? Why was Phichit there to help him?

But Phichit‘s answers remained either mysterious or claimed ignorance, if he gave any at all, and eventually Victor decided to give up.

Instead he focused on licking his wounds, or at least the ones he could reach while standing up, just to quell the bleeding and help with the healing.

The sharp, acrid taste of his own blood made his tongue feel like leather in his mouth, hard and dry and foreign.

Phichit laughed next to him again when he saw. „My, what a big tongue you have, grandma.“

Victor couldn‘t find any amusement in his remark, but he did notice as he looked over to shoot Phichit a sharp glare reflexively that he was actually starting to be able to see some of him.

The darkness was starting to lift.

The night was ending.

The rain had lessened too, though it wasn‘t like it made much of a difference; Victor was soaked through to the bone and would remain so for a long time, he knew.

But at least now he could see a little more of who he had been stuck with on his journey.

Phichit had the appearance of a young man, their skin a light warm brown hue, like fresh wood and turning leaves, but smooth and perfect. They were glowing almost, despite being soaked in rain; as opposed to Victor, they didn’t appear to be shivering. Their eyes were grey and sharp, and Victor was sure they didn’t miss much, including Victor’s curious glances now. Their dark hair was stuck to their head as Victor’s was, sending rivulets of rain water trickling down their face and into their clothes. And these, really, were the most remarkable thing about them.

They weren’t particularly flashy or modern, not like Victor’s own outfits usually were. They seemed almost rural in style, with natural fabrics and earthen tones, but Victor’s trained eye could discern easily how finely they were made. They didn’t seem worn at all, their seams delicate and pristine, and perfectly tailored to Phichit’s narrow frame. The tunic of a rich reddish brown colour was embroidered with a subtle pattern of leaves and vines, so realistic that it almost seemed to move with every step Phichit took.

It was beautiful, but it didn’t give Victor the least clue as to who his companion was.

Phichit shot him curious glances, as if he was expecting more questions, but Victor couldn’t think of any that might get him a straight answer, or none that would be of use to him now. Besides, he was exhausted, dizziness and bone-deep tiredness settling in for real as the last of the adrenaline drained away and only left the blood loss in its wake. His wounds had stopped bleeding by now and Victor knew they weren’t severe enough to be dangerous, but nonetheless he knew he would be feeling the effects of the fight for days to come, moreso if he didn’t get some rest and a decent meal soon. So he decided to focus on putting on foot in front of the other, following Phichit’s completely unerring steps through the underbrush.

It wasn’t until the rain had completely subsided and dawn was well and truly spilling red over the forest floor that Victor decided to speak again.

“How much longer?”, he asked.

Not that knowing would change anything about his distance from a safe place to rest, but somehow Victor still decided it was better to know at least if there were still days or mere hours for them to travel.

“Not long now”, was Phichit’s reply, helpful as ever, but then he added, “in fact, they should be expecting us somewhere around here, if I’m not mistaken.”

_Somewhere around here_ turned out to be another half hour’s walk, by Victor’s best guess, before sounds and smells started to filter through the forest ahead of them, a gathering of at least four people between the trees.

And Victor nearly froze in his steps when those scents, those so familiar scents, fully registered in his brain.

There was Yuri Plisetsky, and Aunt Tanya, and one that must be one of his siblings, though after all the years and the changes they had gone through since then, he couldn’t even tell which one.

And then there was one, so deeply familiar that it tugged on his gut, making him immediately break out into a run. It had been so long since he’d last smelled it, so long that it had been almost forgotten, lost in the murky recesses of his brain, but now that he smelled it again, it was like it had never been gone, like it was just sitting right underneath the surface of his mind. Calling him home.

“Mama!”

He ran, tears springing to his eyes, but it didn’t matter; he didn’t need to see, only needed to scent the air to know that she was running toward him with the same abandon.

“Vitenka!”

He threw himself into her arms, knowing she would catch him—and she did.

He was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you've enjoyed it, please water my crops and feed my children by leaving a comment!
> 
> Chapter 6 posts on Mar 21!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, consider leaving a comment! 🥰
> 
> Part 4 posts on Feb 21. 
> 
> You can find me on [twitter](http://twitter.com/nihidea_art) and [tumblr](http://theliteraryluggage.tumblr.com/), and I also have a [discord server (18+)](https://discord.gg/Qfwp9XMTPg).  
> If you want Early Access to all my Angst Week Fics, I'm sure you know where to find it. If not, feel free to ask! 💜💜💜


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